


Just to Spite the Grave, I'll Adore You

by Rednaelo



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Edited Post-Publishing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hallucinations, Light Angst, Loneliness, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, not yet anyway, the rating is just because of some adult themes that are mentioned, there's no explicit anything happening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: V is asleep in Nero’s bed.  Lying atop the disheveled sheets with his head against Nero’s favorite pillow.  Fully clothed – even his sandals – with his hands folded over his stomach, posed like a corpse for a funerary viewing.  His hair is pale in the dark; there’s no sign of his tattoos.Nero stares into the filmy shadows of his bedroom at a total fucking loss of what to do.  So he continues standing there, staring, like an idiot, trying to figure out if his life is real, until V isn’t there anymore.  Nero blinks and he’s gone.Nero has been left behind to look after Red Grave City.  Which is all well and good until he starts hallucinating V at odd intervals.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> *steeples fingers* I couldn't be less sorry.
> 
> I've never done slow burn because I have no fucking patience to write it but you don't grow unless you challenge yourself so here i am, facilitating my own growth. Hope you find it entertaining.
> 
> -Bec

July is bitter and Red Grave City is a bleeding wound with the fevered onset of an untreated infection.  Which is fine because Nero can still live there and keep himself occupied despite the city being bereft of 99% of its population. But the thing is that since there’s no one working the power plants or water treatment systems or running the trash pickups or nothing, it’s like living in a resplendent squalor. 

Nero is the king of his own filth.  It’s delightful in some boyish, troublemaking ways when he spends a few of those first days sweating the layers of his clothes off and beating demons away from his door in nothing but unzipped jeans and boxers.  And then it’s festering and rank because he can’t shower the viscera of his victories away since there’s no running water and also pissing in storm drains isn’t funny when you don’t run the risk of scandalizing some poor, unsuspecting passerby.  It’s just….  It’s just his only option.

No lights on during the night and Nero bangs his knees a couple times and has to ham-fistedly negotiate with the old windows to keep them open and try and get some breezes going through the second floor since air conditioning is just a blissful, mocking memory of a past life.  At one of the windows, Nero grits his teeth and his biceps flex tight and he shoves it up only for the glass to bend and shatter and confetti his skin in razor cuts.

“Fucking…,” Nero sighs and just turns away from the mess, bracing his whole torso against the wall so he can pick a shard out from where it lodged in the web between his first two toes. The moon shines in and the blood on his foot is in such contrast against his pale-ass feet that it looks black. Nero stares blankly and wonders when the fuck Dante and Vergil are going to shut the damn portal so he can leave this city to mend in peace.  And go back to a more familiar bed, no longer darken the door of this abandoned townhouse that that serves as Nero’s palace of decadence.

If whoever lived here isn’t dead and got out of Red Grave before shit went to hell, they’re gonna be pissed when they come back.  No kids, at least, Nero thinks; he didn’t find any rooms that were pink or plastered in cartoon posters or crayon scribbles on the pale damask wallpaper.  He picked a bedroom that looked the least lived-in, feeling an invader into an uprooted life, and promptly massacred it into his own space, thinking it was less impolite than finding the master bedroom and just desecrating it for his own purposes.  This was someone’s home.  This was someone’s safety, once. 

Now it’s just a squat for Nero to camp out in while he tries to beat back the infestation, thankless, unpaid, sweating in the bitterness of July, alone at night and offending Nico’s nose during the day.  Not that she’s not repaying him the offense; her sweat smells like motor oil and sour cigarettes.

The shards of glass can stay where they are and Nero will hate himself tomorrow morning when he forgets about it and steps on another sharp bit, but being awake for another second is soundly irritating and Nero goes to the room that he’s decided is his.

V is asleep in Nero’s bed.  Lying atop the disheveled sheets with his head against Nero’s favorite pillow.  Fully clothed – even his sandals – with his hands folded over his stomach, posed like a corpse for a funerary viewing.  His hair is pale in the dark; there’s no sign of his tattoos.

Nero stares into the filmy shadows of his bedroom at a total fucking loss of what to do.  So he continues standing there, staring, like an idiot, trying to figure out if his life is real, until V isn’t there anymore.  Nero blinks and he’s gone.

He doesn’t speak but there’s a frantic noise that leaves Nero’s throat as he throws himself forward, hands pressing and flailing to feel lingering body heat but there is none. There’s no divot of V’s weight settled into the mattress.  Nero dips down to search for a longer strand of silver perhaps fallen and finds none; the only scent on the pillow is the familiar-and-nothing of his own.

Nero’s heart is hammering so hard that it rattles up to his skull and he breathes in deep but it doesn’t do anything to calm him down.

“Christ,” he mutters and hurls the pillow at the wall.  It _fwumps_ to the floor and he sleeps without it just to spite his own head and its fucking delusions.

 

* * *

 

By August, Red Grave City is peripherally habitable.  Day-in, day-out beating back the hoard has made the outer perimeter quiet.  Opportunists have moved in: punks and gangers and people who keep guns in their belts and knives in their boots.  Looters, too.  Nero has spotted more than one group scrounging through the department stores and groceries.  They’re a lot keener to see what Red Grave still has to offer, as opposed to any government, which has evidently written the city off for a loss. 

Uneasy anarchy is the way of the world now, those with the power staking their claims in the areas that are bothered the least by the supernatural.  The payoff is that now when Nero and Nico go careening through the city limits, they’re hollered at and invited over and wined and dined on back-porch barbeque and looted kegs of beer.

It isn’t long before more well-endowed opportunists show up and they have things like trailer-trucks full of generators and gasoline and suddenly Red Grave has a ring of light surrounding it.  The jewel of that ring is a nightclub called Flicker.  Nico drags Nero there for its “grand opening” which is completely fucking stupid because who opens a nightclub in a city populated by more monsters than humans?

Only it’s not stupid because the food is free-flowing and delicious and Nero’s glass is literally never empty and there’s _people_ here.  There’s enough people to crowd the bar and fill the dance floor and spill out onto the sidewalks and smoke.  There’s a DJ filling both floors and the rooftop with psytrance industrial raucous that has strangers dancing like they’re fucking with their teeth bared in the blacklight and strobe.

Nero is drunk and doesn’t have to listen to anything but the noise and doesn’t have to do anything but be lost to it.  Somewhere…. Nico’s somewhere.  She’s dancing, maybe?  He might’ve seen her fluffy hair bouncing around over there in the crush of bodies.  Or maybe she went out to suck on some cigarettes.  Nero picks up his generously refilled glass and sips at it while his unfocused eyes wander the colored silhouettes of the entire city’s population that’s surely inhabiting this space.  They’re probably breaking fire code regulations or something.  It’s so sweaty in here.

He’s been trying not to, with all of his meandering thoughts that might find their way back, but Nero’s thinking about V again.  About V appearing in his bed, not comfortable but asleep.  He looked dead. Maybe he _was_ dead. 

He’s as good as dead, isn’t he?

It was one time too many, seeing something like that.  Mostly because Nero was already moving on.  He’d cut the loss and didn’t mourn because there were too many new outrages to go screaming after.  V asleep (dead) in his room just threw in a hurdle that Nero didn’t manage to clear properly and now he’s hobbling with a busted shin.

Imagining things?  Sure, but why V?  Nero can’t figure it out.  Probably because he honestly doesn’t know but mostly because this is the eighth Jack and Coke that he’s had tonight, tossin’ ‘em back like water.

Someone grabs Nero’s arm and says, “Hey, dance with me.” And Nero says, “Alright,” because that sounds a lot easier than sitting at this bar and _thinking_.  Nero goes to the crush of bodies and forgets thought and becomes instinct.  The rhythm and noise is a perfect clamor, everyone sweating out pheromones. Nero succumbs to the fever and makes out with a few strangers against the walls and in the crowds and it just feels _good_.

He stays until the dark hours start turning to light again then goes stumbling out with four new hickeys and something sticky smeared across the front of his jeans and against his palm but that’s whatever. Slumping sideways into the passenger seat of the van, he can’t even get the door closed until after Nico’s already keyed the ignition and swerved back onto the road. Honestly, she might still be drunk but it’s not like she drives any better when she’s sober.

Nero is _absolutely_ still drunk because he lifts up his head and squints against the caustic dawn and sees V in the rearview.  Can’t see his face properly as he lays there on the couch.  But the hair, the clothes, the shoes on his long, pale feet….

Nero groans and heaves himself around to look over his shoulder.  There’s no one in the van.  It’s just him and Nico.

Then Nico sideswipes an empusa and Nero gets his skull _clonked_ against the dashboard when she overcorrects them and they broadside into a storefront window.  It’s so much easier to scream and cuss and forget everything in a froth of butchering demons with bullets and blade.  Easier than thinking.  Easier than a hangover and a headache and a hallucination that’s haunting him.

Nero’s head fucking hurts.

 

* * *

 

The water starts running again mid-morning on a Tuesday in September. Nero finds out because Nico calls him wailing gleefully about it in his ear to which he answers with rapidly-gaining excitement saying, “No fuckin’ way,” and forgets his phone in his haste to run into the bathroom and yank every tap open.  The water flows freely.  Nero laughs in disbelieving delight. 

He sticks his head directly into the flow of the tub and then spits out a mouthful of nasty because that water has been stagnant in the pipes for months.  All the more reason to just let it run for a while.  Nero hurries down the stairs to the kitchen and turns the taps on there, too.  Then he goes, “Oh, shit,” and runs to the long-forgotten laundry room and goes rooting around for detergent to use because he can wash his fucking clothes now.

Goddammit if Nero ever thought he’d be excited to do laundry but he goes stomping up the stairs and bounding right back down again with his arms full of sweaty-smelling shirts and gore-crusted pants.  He dumps the whole load into the washing machine and then strips off all the clothes he’s wearing and throws them in, too.

Takes a few minutes to fenagle the machinery but before long, it’s filling up and churning and Nero’s standing there with his dirty feet on the tile, bare-ass naked, thinking that he has to thank Nico for hooking him up with the generator out back.

The whole house is full of the music of running water and it’s almost like Nero’s out in the wilds with how refreshing the sound is.  God, if he could get out of this fucking city….  He should’ve just left after Dante and Vergil fucked off and left the place to rot.  No, but _now_ he’s set this precedent and now there’s _people_ here.  Strangers with familiar faces and they’d be a lot easier to hate if Nero hadn’t seen them, known them.  Found them laughing at improv’d rap battles on street corners.  Been thanked by them for making this hollowed-out corpse of a city a place to live for outcasts like them. 

Nero wasn’t there for it but Nico went to go help out some lady with a homebirth and Nero’s seen the dad clutching that little baby against his inked-up chest, mumbling lullabies in Creole.

He can’t leave these people.  They ran here thinking they’d be better off than they were in their cities and the only thing between that stroke of brilliance and all of them dying is Nero.  With his sword and his gun and his shitty-ass family who left him behind.

Now he gets to pretend his only hobbies are waiting for time to pass and getting drunk in the hours that he’s not sleeping.  Why would he want anything else.

Other than a shower.  Nero’s standing in the laundry room like a naked dumbfuck when he could be showering right now.

There’s still a couple of clean towels around and Nero yanks one out of the closet and takes it with him to the bathroom where the tap is running cold.

In the bathtub, head above the water and still fully clothed, is V.  Dead to the world, of course.  Which is….  That’s fine because he’s not even there, he’s just like a heat mirage or something.

Nero takes cautious steps closer, his feet soundless against the tile floor, and drops into a squat next to the tub. His suddenly-held breath rushes out, a growl muffled into the cup of his palms while he drags his hands down his face. Peeking through his fingers, V is still there.  Serene.  Waxy-stiff but composed like a work of art. His lips are still the proper color, cheeks not flushed but not sallowed yellow either.

“Hey,” Nero says and doesn’t intend for his voice to crack but there’s no one here so what does it matter?  “The hell’s going on, V?”  His hand extends, heart climbing up into Nero’s throat as his fingers follow the path of his gaze: there’s a shining strand of hair caught in V’s eyelashes.

He blinks only once and Nero’s reaching for empty space and a bathtub with nothing in it, all the water running unstopped down the drain.

He pulls his hand back and his short fingernails scrape welts into his palm. 

“The hell’s going on…,” Nero asks the floor this time.  The grout between the tiles is grayed with dirt and there’s muddy smears across the ceramic squares here and there.  For some goddamn reason, Nero suddenly feels like cleaning it.  Cleaning the whole house.  The whole place is fuckin’ filthy and smells like sweat and rot and, god, it’s no wonder V showed up in the bathtub.  Probably the only damn place that wasn’t coated in grime. 

Nero glares at the taps on the tub and then reaches over to wrench the hot knob open.  The water flows swiftly until it’s steaming and fogging up the antique mirror over the sink and Nero just hunches there a while.  It’s only when he reminds himself that he’s squatting by a bathtub, naked, anticipating that V will appear again that Nero smacks his palm against his face.  The mechanical one.  Because, fuck, does he need it. 

Then he takes the Devil Breaker off and doesn’t think about anything but scouring every rancid stench and bit of grit off of his skin, out of his hair.  The house…. He’ll clean it tomorrow.  At least it’ll give him something to _do_.

 

* * *

 

Nero sits on the front steps of his luxurious squat-house with whiskey bottles in regiment around his bare feet, slurping from another bottle in his hand. He figures it’s a sign, these illusions of V appearing to him.  It’s a sign, it’s a message, his own head trying to tell him something.  Fuck if Nero knows what the message is but he’s at least determined that much.

He gives himself pithy spaces to think on it, like he’s avoided giving himself space to consider the bigger, grosser questions.  He doesn’t attempt to understand or justify the sickening thrill of power he gets whenever the Devil goes snarling through his blood.  He doesn’t give himself the guilty satisfaction of wishing that Dante and Vergil will just rot and never come back.  Every time he’s grit his teeth around the idea, he’s been instantly put off of it.  They’re family, his _only_ family.  Even if they fucking suck.   

Nero drowns all those thoughts in Jim Beam thinks about V.  V is here, even if it’s just in bursts of Nero’s emergent madness.

It’s easier, Nero guesses, to think about V than to think about the shitshow that the rest of his life is.  V never thought he was dead weight, never turned his back and scoffed.  He showed up because he needed Nero’s help.  Believed in him.  Had answers for everything, even if he wasn’t always transparent about it.   And if Nero’s going to drunkenly justify his hallucinations, then V is the only member of his family that he wishes he could actually see again, all honesty, no resentment.  Nero didn’t think of him as family until the very end (and still baffles himself thinking of it now), but V did a better job of treating Nero the way he figures family should treat one another. And that was before either of them even knew. 

He’s oversimplifying it, sure, but it’s his own damn crazy, he’ll interpret it however the fuck he pleases.   He just wants to see V, so his idiot brain is doing him the favor.

And as soon as Nero arrives at that conclusion, V starts appearing more often.

It’s a few days into October and Nero sees him fucking everywhere.  Every day. On couches and benches at bus stops and in parks.  Different times of day, different places. Always the same way, always just for a few held breaths.  Nero can’t ever try to touch him, he just vanishes all the quicker.  At one point, he spots V floating in a nearby fountain while out on a solo raid and almost loses his guts getting snipped by a Death Scissor.  Which is enough for him to stop daydreaming and just focus on the fights.  V isn’t going to randomly appear in the middle of a skirmish.

Nero fucking hopes not.  He envisions it and swallows the hard knot of nausea in his throat, throwing his head from side to side to shake the thought out of him.  No, it’s not going to happen.  Nero wouldn’t hurt him.  Not even on accident.

Near into November, Nero dreams about him.  Dreams that V shows him an empty grave in the wet, black earth and they stand there, side by side, staring at it.  Until V sighs in shivering resignation and confesses, whispering, “I don’t want to go.”

The whole day after that, Nero can’t think about anything else.  Doesn’t even have the urge to mouth off at any of his targets and when he just slams the door of the van after he’s done with a fourth round of fighting, Nico clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes and says,

“A’ight, we’re done.”

“What?” Nero jolts out of his reverie and stares at her, bewildered.  “Hey, I’m on a roll here, I’m doing my job.”

“No you ain’t, you’re pouting,” she argues, tires squealing and taking them the opposite direction of their usual patrol route.  “And it’s annoying the shit outta me.  We can pick this up tomorrow.  Hoard’s thinned out anyway.”

Nero wants to argue just to be a stubborn asshole about it but he looks into the rearview mirror and sees V on the couch back there, _again_ , and all the fire in him douses.

“Fine,” he says under his breath.  “Let’s go to that shitty nightclub.”  If there’s enough people there, if he gets drunk enough, Nero won’t have the sense or awareness to even notice a silver-haired corpse amongst the swarm.  Or think about how there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to save him.

 

When Nico comes push-and-shoving frantically through the crowd over to the bar, Nero starts to lower his glass and sit up straighter, going for Blue Rose.  But she blusters right on by and just hollers at the bartender for a glass of water.  Nero relaxes again and knocks back the rest of his tequila-whatever.  It’s good but he has no idea what the fuck it is.  Nor does he give a shit; it’s getting him drunk out of his mind, that’s the important part.

“Hey, you seen V?” Nico yells at him over the music that’s trying to shake the nightclub down.

“Nah, it’s been hours,” Nero answers in a despondent slur. 

It’s only when she gives him that, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you,’ look that Nero reexamines the conversation they just had.   Wait….

“What?” Nero says, blinking at her and her furrowed brow and suspiciously squinting eyes.

“Hours?” she accuses.  “And you didn’t say nothin’?”

“No, no,” Nero puts down his empty glass and shoves away from the bar, trying to get his head to stop spinning.  His sluggish pulse is starting to synchronize to the frantic bassbeat thrumming through his every bone.  “You’ve seen him?”

“Yeah, dummy, he’s over there.”  Nico swivels around and stands on her toes, pointing to the far wall where there’s a cluster of people occupying some of the offside seating.  On a black and red couch, a very familiar figure is sitting slumped forward, bracing his weight on a silver cane.

Nero stares, dumbfounded, watching every movement, every little sway and shift of his head.  One elegant, pale hand firms itself on the head of the cane while the other lifts to clutch at silver hair and cradle his skull.

Then Nico is next to V, gently touching his shoulder.  Nero watches, breath vanished from his chest.  V lifts his head, eyes unfocused, and takes the cup of water that Nico holds out to him. 

He’s _here_.  Not an obscure hallucination that Nero’s brain cooked up; he’s actually _here_.

Between the bar and the couch there might be hundreds of people to contend with but Nero doesn’t remember shoving through any of them; he’s standing before V and whatever time it took to get there is lost.  V gazes up at him, his chest heaving and dark eyes unfocused like he’s been made to run a mile with a fever.  Already, Nero is reaching to steady him, clutching him at the elbow while V rises and overbalances into Nero’s space, falls against his chest. 

 _Warm_.  Solid and breathing like there isn’t enough oxygen to satisfy him, each inhale pressing firm and fleeting against Nero’s stomach.  His cheek rubs up against Nero’s jaw – goosebumps break out, lifting like static along his neck – and a weak whisper gusts against Nero’s ear.

“Too loud,” V pleads, the words almost lost beneath the din of the club.  Nero sweeps them to the fire exit without even pausing to think about it.

The rear alleyway is quieter but it’s also got some lady turning tricks and another guy just pissing against the back wall so Nero keeps walking with his arm slung around V’s waist, giving him something to lean into.  They go opposite the street and Nero lowers V until he can sit on the curb.

“This okay?” he asks and looms there, looking down at V, barely believing.  He’ll vanish any second now.

“Better,” V groans gently and wraps his arms around himself.  All his tattoos are gone but the scars beneath them still remain.  Nero can barely see them in the yellowish lamplight.    

In Nero’s shadow, V shivers like he’s trying to suppress it, but it’s too obvious by his broken, stuttered breathing.  He’s shaking, rocking himself almost imperceptibly.  Nero cusses under his breath and starts fumbling with his coat, pulling and tugging it off of himself so he can sling it around V’s shoulders.  V finally lifts his head as Nero kneels to secure the zipper (and fails; he’s _way_ too drunk, his fingers won’t stop trembling) but that’s about the time Nico comes screeching up to the sidewalk with the van. 

Nero frowns over his shoulder.  Oh.  Guess she…went and did that, then.  He didn’t remember seeing her after he went to V….

“Hey, c’mon,” Nero says, turning back to V and helps him stand again.  “Let’s get out of here.”

V goes without trouble and without a word, helped every step by Nero, who’s unsteady on his own feet, liquored and questioning what’s real and what isn’t, but still manages to guide V to lay down on the couch inside the van.  The engine’s churning familiarly and its hum fills in the silence while the jukebox plays jazz in crooning saxophone and high-hat taps.  It’s fucking freezing inside but the heater vents are roaring.

“Maybe don’t drive like an asshole for once?” Nero asks, leaning against the driver’s seat.

“Shut up and siddown,” Nico says, clicking her lighter open.  Nero takes the seat that faces the couch and settles in right as V tucks his coat tight around his body, eyes closing. 

There’s a nauseous seize of cold in Nero’s stomach that lurches up as Nico puts her foot (as gingerly as she cares) on the gas pedal and they pull out on the road.  V’s eyes are restless beneath translucent lids.  And he’s on his side, not his back.  His hands tucked up tight inside of Nero’s coat.  It’s alright.  He’s _here_ , not some illusion. Nero could touch him, _has_ touched him. 

Even so, he’s reaching his left hand out and gently shifting a silver strand of hair from V’s shadowy, sculpted features.  Just to prove to himself that he can.

V opens his eyes and he stares with a veil of exhaustion over his gaze but he’s not looking anywhere else.  Steady and worn, watching Nero watch him. A slow breath is sipped between V’s parted lips and he sighs it all out again, like he’s settling in to sleep.

“I’m back,” he murmurs, a smile full of relief slipping behind the lining of Nero’s coat.  This time his eyes close like he couldn’t bear to keep them open any longer.  Nero swallows on a dry throat and just nods. 

He never lets his eyes leave V once, barely blinking, sure that the moment he looks away, he’ll just be living another day of his life, wishing he had more than fantasies to keep him company.

But V doesn’t go anywhere.  Nero never knew gratefulness could feel so awful, twisting up in his chest like ivy and thorns.  He watches V breathe slowly in and slowly out and breathes along with him.  It hurts less with every breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come check out my [tumblr ](http://rednaelo.tumblr.com)if you like.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot is hard. this is still just like an introductory chapter. i extended the chapter count from 3 to 5 for this one but tbh who knows how long it's gonna take. i'm trying to keep realistic goals in mind but i'm like.... this is practically new territory for me, yknow? bear with me; hope you like it.
> 
> -Bec

The worst is the pain.  There’s so much of it that V struggles to parse one sensation of agony from another.  He remains as still as he possibly can, trying to fool his nerves that there’s actually no sensation happening whatsoever.  Instead, he focuses on sounds. On the van’s comforting and familiar rumble of gears shifting, the accelerator somehow not climbing to its full, reckless potential.  The jukebox crackle-humming sultry lounge tracks; this song is actually one of V’s favorites.  Nico’s singing along under her breath in the front seat.  Faintly, V hopes that he doesn’t end up tying the song with the sensations of cramping nausea that are filling him up and making cold sweat bead between his shoulders.

This fragrance, too: Nero’s coat, the soft lining pressed against V’s nose….  How very unfortunate it would be smell Nero’s scent and think of hurt. Unfortunate and ultimately overdramatic, V scolds himself in a bitter thought. It’s an easy habit for him, to linger in fantasies of the worst when the pain is this present.  Instead, V purposefully weaves the scent into better memories.  Of soft warmth against frayed nerve-endings.  Of stable hands and feet supporting V’s unsteady steps.  Of the barely noticeable way that Nero has been breathing in steady synch with V’s own breaths.  He’s _here_. V has made it back to him, against his odds.

Inevitably, the van comes to a stop and V has to make peace with the fact that he’ll be expected to stand, expected to go out into the dark, penetrating cold of the nighttime and maneuver himself to some other location.  He counts the seconds and cherishes every one of them that he spends immobile.  Nico turns the keys in the ignition; the engine clicks off and all goes silent.

“How’s a bed sound instead of that sticky pleather?” Nero asks at a very reasonable volume.  V makes his eyes open and lays them on Nero’s drunken grin and outstretched hands and thinks that braving whatever protests his body will give is worth having a bed to bury himself in. He manages to sit up, though he moves like a marionette made of rusted tin, all stiff, heaving movements, graceless and ugly.  And it’s not like V can’t acknowledge his own vanity and be perfectly at peace with it but there’s still burning shame in him when Nero stares.  He pulls Nero’s jacket more snugly around his shoulders and reaches for his cane.

“I apologize for disrupting your evening,” V croaks with an air of practiced detachment and a smile meant to demonstrate his harmlessness (there’s sweat on his forehead; his cheeks are scorched with fever flush).  Nero may not see through every veil that V has drawn over himself but he has a disarming way of cutting through all of them, easily, and just waits for V to take his offered hands.

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” he says flippantly.  His fingers close steadily around V’s wrists.  “Didn’t wanna be there anyway.”

V allows himself to be manhandled to his feet and they’re both quite uncoordinated and fumbling together, Nero inebriated in a way that V certainly has never seen before, trying to make up for V’s body, which has already given up.  Nero sputters a laugh after he kicks open the door of the van and they both stumble out onto the road.

“Jeez, sorry,” he says as V lists into his side, wincing.  “Shouldn’ta had those last few.”  They handle the front stairs like it’s a puzzle to be solved and V laughs, breathless, while they two fools make their way up.  What good is his pride next to Nero, really?  Nero, who couldn’t care less if V sees him making an ass of himself drunk while he tries to help him out of the biting night winds, taking him into his home.  Nero’s kindness is a healing glow that’s numbing out all that is sore and weary.  

V is led to a bedroom on the first floor, which Nico is clearing out by filling her arms with odds and ends she’s swept off the bed.

“There, she’s all yours,” she says warmly after dumping a heap of laundry into the closet.  “I’mma head back.  Ya’ll call me if anything serious comes up.”

“What, you’re just going back?” Nero asks as he very carefully guides V to sit amongst the disheveled blankets.  V curls forward over his knees a little bit once Nero is no longer holding up his weight; the pinch of hot nausea reliably returns. 

“Yeah, cuz the two of you ain’t gonna be interesting until tomorrow when you’re sober and you’re lookin’ a little less like we just dug you out of a grave.”  She points at Nero and then to V and gives a single, soundless huff of laughter.  Oh, how truly apt the comparison she makes.  Nero is glaring at her like Nico just offended him in a way he didn’t know he could be offended.  “Til then, I spotted Miss Marlene headin’ in just as I was headin’ out so I’m goin’ back for that purpose alone.  Deuces!”  And she leaves.

“Marlene?” V ends up asking after the door slams and Nico’s tires go pealing into the midnight.

“Nico’s sweet on her,” Nero explains.  “Pretty sure they’re like gun girlfriends or something.”

“I see,” V says.  Right.  So.  If sleep is the next step then….  The shoes need to come off.  He takes a breath and then leans over to pull at the straps of his sandals.  He’s still as stilted as can be, every inch moved aching like a bone-deep bruise.

“You got that?” Nero asks, still just standing there, watching him.

“I think so, yes,” V sighs.  It takes more than a few minutes for him to remove his shoes but eventually, he pushes them off and retreats to lean up against the headboard, blankets pulled up around his hips.  All of that in and of itself was a tremendous effort.  V stares at the wall and makes himself breathe slowly.  His throat is parched.

Nero hasn’t moved or said anything.  And now V looks at him, blinking when his vision blurs and his breath hitches.

“You’re probably curious,” he says to Nero, pressing back against his exhaustion while it tries to suffocate him, “but I’m having difficulty….”  Speaking, staying awake, finding the strength to care about anything but leaving this pain behind.

“Should just sleep,” Nero says.  “Nico’s right, we’re in a shit state.  Go to bed.”  He turns for the door and flicks off the lights, leaving only the bedside lamplight glowing soft over V’s skin.  It’s like the final affirmation for his body to give in and he sinks into himself, lowering until the pillows are cradling his heavy head. 

“I’ll be here,” Nero reminds V, the last thing he hears before sleep swells up and draws him under.

 

* * *

  

It’s a very paltry five hours of sleep that V manages to scrape together, waking up intermittently to lamplight and silence and Nero – at one point – standing in the doorway, watching over him.  And then he rouses and thinks to himself that he’ll probably not manage to go back down until he’s thoroughly exhausted himself once again. 

Nero’s coat is still bundled up in his arms and V pulls it on before sliding his legs from under the comforter and pressing his bare feet to the carpet.  His first independent journey on this earth crippled him before it was finished, his very existence persisting towards a tomb of dust and oblivion.  This time around….  He’s made it back but the price is that much more agonizing.  There will be no sweet release of death this time.  V has chosen to live.  Now he must suffer living.

Right now that means his skin stings like he’s been scraped raw.  It means every muscle aches and obeys sluggishly.  It means his temples throb and his stomach twists and he’s too cold no matter now thick Nero’s coat is around his shoulders.  V grips the lapels and pulls tight.  The weight is comfortable in spite of every other discomfort that burdens him.  It smells like gunpowder and body-warmth.

V stares at his own knees and wonders if trying to stand and walk on his own would be foolish. He only gets as far as wondering because there’s the approaching thump of self-assured footsteps across hardwood and then Nero’s in the door.

“You’re up?” he asks V coming into the room without bothering to be invited but V can’t be bothered to mind, so he doesn’t.

“Sleep is done with me for the moment,” V says.  He tries not to sigh but it washes out of his chest anyway.

“Yeah, that’s where I’m at, too,” Nero says.  “You want food?  I got enough stuff to make somethin’ if you’re hungry.”

Whether or not V could keep any food down is the better question.  But he supposes he won’t know unless he makes an honest attempt.

“Something warm?” V requests.  “And bland, perhaps. Oatmeal, rice porridge….”

“Yep, I can do that,” Nero nods.  “Hang tight.”  And he’s gone in a hasty retreat.  V looks down at his feet on the floor; there’s the acute sensation like they’re being run-through with needles if he puts too much weight on them.

There might not be any recovery from this.  This pain may just be V’s companion for as long as this shell will hold him.  Surely it would have been easier to simply remain within familiar boundaries.  But what once was home is now prison; being bound to him was no longer an option.

With that dismissal Nero gave him, V supposes he’s meant to stay in bed.  He stands, anyway, taking his cane in hand and hobbling on cramping feet out of the room. 

The house is utterly unfamiliar but clearly lived in.  From the pileup of cups and empty dishes on the coffee table to the scattering of weapon maintenance supplies spread on the couch.  This is Nero’s home. His scent is everywhere here, moreso than in the bedroom where V slept.  He stops a moment and breathes in deep. 

The kitchen is separated from the living room only by a high-countered bar and Nero spots V as soon as he turns around.

“Sit anywhere you want,” Nero says as he goes to the fridge.

“Could I please have some water?” V asks as he limps to the low table at the corner where the light is only just starting to spill through the pastel blue curtains.

“Mmhmm,” Nero says.  “You’re lucky you got here when you did. Water’s been running for a few months now.  Before then I only had soda and beer.”

V wrinkles his nose in distaste and gives another unbidden groan of pain as he settles in the chair.  Nero’s there, putting a cut-crystal glass in front of him full of cold water in the next moment.

“Thank you,” V says and tugs the glass closer before lifting it up. 

It’s quiet.  Save for the occasional noises of Nero moving around in the kitchen and V’s chronic sighing, there’s no other sound to speak of.  V thinks it’d be pleasant if they could have music.  Some jazz piano and bass….

“How’d you get back?” Nero breaks through V’s distracted thoughts to ask.  “Since you’re here, that mean we’re gonna have a problem with Urizen again?”

V touches his finger to the forming condensation on his glass and draws a line through it, idly.

“I’m not sure.  Not on either count,” he says.  Nero scoffs and shakes his head. 

“Guess if it’s a problem, we’ll find out soon enough,” he says, easy-as-you-please.  V draws another line on the glass with a wet fingertip.  Voluntarily separating could have consequences that extend beyond his immediate scope.  He’ll only know when Dante and Vergil return.  Whenever that may be.

“We’re in Red Grave City?” V asks.  He hasn’t seen much but he saw enough last night to hazard a guess. 

“That’s right,” Nero says.  “Never left it.”

“Right…because I….  Vergil bid you stay.”

“I’m not doing it for that asshole,” Nero snaps.  “Not doing it for _you_ either.  Or Dante or any of you.”  V stares at Nero and Nero glares right back, gesturing at V with the wet end of a wooden spoon.  “I’m here because I decided to stay here and give a shit.  Alright?”

V can’t help the smile that slides slyly over his lips.

“It’s as you say,” he agrees easily.  Nero narrows his eyes in doubt but lets it lie and just goes back to stirring.  The side of his neck is flushed pink.  “I’m here because I wanted to be, too,” V offers conciliatorily.

“Thought you said you didn’t know how you got here,” Nero grumbles.

“I don’t know _how_ ,” V says.  “I do know _why_.” 

Nero looks back over his shoulder and V meets his eyes before turning towards the window and pulling the curtain back.

“You wanted to be here,” Nero repeats, disbelieving. 

“I wanted to be my own again,” V says, looking towards the dawnlight turning the sky pale yellow and pink at the fringes.  “Or I wanted to be the whole that I once was.  Those were the options.  The choice was my own but also made for me.  So here I am.”

Nero snorts.

“Cryptic much?” he asks, turning back to the stove.  V grins.

“Forgive me, it’s a habit,” he says. 

“You became one with Vergil again and tried to make it stick but it just wasn’t happening,” Nero translates.  “So you gave up on that lost cause and just came back instead.”

“Not at all,” V says.  “It was either one choice or another.  I gave up nothing.  I simply chose.”

“Good choice,” Nero says.  He turns the gas off with a snap and pours half the contents of the pot into a ceramic bowl, bringing it over with a spoon and then setting it on front of V.  “There.  It’s only got like a lil hit of a salt in it so it probably doesn’t taste fantastic.”

V tugs to bowl closer to himself and breathes in the scent of warm, sticky oats, letting it fill his mouth and encourage his salivatory glands to liven up since his stomach is still a little lopsided on the idea of eating.  He has to try. 

“Thank you,” V says.  It’s a little too hot and V isn’t so ravenous that he feels like blowing on his spoonful to cool it off; he scoops up a bit and just rests the spoon against the side of the bowl so it cools on its own.  “Do you resent Vergil, then?”

Nero lands in the chair opposite V and slouches back in it, rolling his head to consider the ceiling for a moment.

“Guy’s an asshole,” Nero says simply. 

“Quite stubborn,” V agrees.  “But so are you.”

“And you too, I bet,” Nero says, looking back down at him.  V just smiles and finally brings the oatmeal to his mouth.

“It runs in the family,” V says after he swallows and Nero smirks at him and says nothing else to that.

V eats slowly, constantly assessing after each and every bite whether he should stop and Nero sits across from him the entire time.  Not making conversation or attempting to entertain himself, he just stares at V for the most part, halfway between lazy and fascinated. V lets himself finish his food and lets whatever thoughts he has about Nero paying such dedicated attention to him just come and go easily.  Daylight warms V’s body beneath the deep blue of Nero’s coat.  He still hasn’t taken it off; Nero hasn’t asked him to return it.

“Would you mind it if I stayed with you?” V asks after the bowl is empty and his stomach is as full as he thinks is prudent.  He opens his mouth to plead his case, remind Nero that he has nowhere else, appeal to that sense of goodwill that he knows Nero buries under his bravado.  But the effort proves unnecessary.

“Don’t have to ask that,” Nero says.  “Make yourself at home, I know I have.”  Nero gestures broadly to the house around them.  “I’m gonna be out crushing demons during the day but I’ll get you a phone so you can text me if you need stuff.  Doubt you’ll be coming with me on the raids, yeah?”  He gestures his chin at V, at – V realizes after a beat – his lack of tattoos.  “Don’t have your buddies to help you out anymore.”

“No, I’m without them now,” V says.  His heart squeezes, aching more than he thought it would, and he traces the raised scar of a blank tattoo on the back of his wrist.  “I suspect I won’t regain their company or their strength.”

“So just chill here as long as you like,” Nero says.  His hands go in his pockets and his face turns decidedly away even though he’s been staring this whole time.  This is what makes him avert his eyes.  “I’ll house you and feed you and whatever.  You figure out on your own what you’re gonna do with yourself now that you’re not him anymore.”

Whatever leftover tension there was in the unknown – the fear of Nero possibly wanting nothing to do with him, scorned by V’s deceptions or associations with Vergil – it lifts itself from V’s shoulders and he accepts the mercy he’s offered. 

“I’ll do that,” he tells Nero and Nero grunts an affirmation and decides that he’s ready to leave the conversation. 

“I’m gonna go shower,” he grumbles, heading towards the stairs.  “Your bathroom’s over there.” And then his footsteps are going thump-thump-thump up the stairs.  V lets his smile lift the corners of his mouth once more. 

The pain is present, a soreness from the surface of his skin to the marrow of his bones.  But the headache’s gone.  His stomach has settled and his throat is quenched again.  V closes his eyes and courts the idea of sleep and sleep teases him back, sliding through his weariness and tugging him closer.  He’ll nod off right here if he lets himself.

Resisting the temptation isn’t at all easy but keeping a constant, quiet awareness of the pain is enough to keep V awake.  He shuts his eyes.  His body goes still.  There’s a far-off and muffled rush of water moving through the pipes as Nero starts up his shower. 

V envisions the depths of his own soul.

It’s a cemetery.  V stands amongst the tombs that stretch for as far as the horizon extends over gently sloping hills and thinks to himself that this would be rather amusing if it weren’t so utterly true.  And here he is, within himself, at the foot of an open grave that’s surely his.  V regards the headstone.  Plain gray granite, not even carved.

“This is all I merited, hm?” he asks aloud and smiles unkindly at his final resting place.  “I should be so honored that you even bothered to mark it.”

Anger is so easy to recall and it scorches like a hot coal dropped into the pit of V’s stomach but is just as soon extinguished.  Nothing but bitter ash at the back of his throat now.  What’s the point of rousing his fury here? 

“No,” V says gently.  Far away, there’s water running through the pipes of a warm house.  “No, there’s no room for you here anymore.”

He slowly lowers himself to kneel and puts both of his hands in the mound of soft, black earth that’s beside the open grave, shoving a bit of it back to where it came.  One-hundred and eighteen cubic feet of dirt would be much more easily moved with a shovel, one that V could conjure with a single thought in this landscape of his own heart, but that’s contrary to his true endeavor. 

“With my own hands I’ll unmake everything,” he promises. “With my own hands….  I’ll grow where you thought nothing could thrive.”

He thinks he’s allowed a little vindictiveness, after everything.  It would be such a shame, though, to simply let it mire and turn as bitter as Vergil became. Then what would V prove?  That Vergil was right all along.  That simply won’t do.

Moment by moment, V pushes all the dirt back into the grave until his hands are muddy and his fingernails are gritty and his knees and ankles ache in sympathy even though he knows he’s sitting upright in a chair in Nero’s kitchen. He breathes steadily in and with each exhale sweeps his arms over the ground and fills some more.  

Thoughts idle for a time too long leave V full of swollen sadness; he pushes dirt into the grave and lingers in his own grief and greed, thinking on all the things he had - all the things he was - and has lost.  If he counted his regrets and let each one have its moment to ache and fester, he'd never leave this place.  The only thing to soothe him now is possibility.   

“With my own hands…,” he repeats as his mantra, his guiding creed.  “With my own hands….”  Even a man broken can find some mountain to move, no matter how insignificant.

When the grave is filled, V crawls to the headstone and exerts all of his weight against it, shoving until it dislodges and falls over with a hard _whump_ on the grass.  Then it just dissipates, like it was made of nothing but dust, scattering into the air.  V looks down at his hands and sees tattoos stretching from his nailbeds to his wrists.

He opens his eyes in shock but outside of himself, in reality, the ink isn’t there.  Only the scars remain. V stares at his hands curled gently on the tops of his thighs, feeling utterly immobile.  Extensions of the metaphysical don’t manifest and even if V turns the graveyard of his soul into a garden, that doesn’t mean that any good will come of it. 

It’s a place to start, at least.  What better way to exert his influence than in the intimate and infinite space that is within him?  He can do whatever he likes with it.  V belongs to himself alone now.

He lifts his heavy hands and wraps his arms around himself, clutching Nero’s coat around his body tightly and wafting a soft blossom of that familiar scent over himself once again.  This can be home, V thinks carefully, nurturing the hope taking seed in him.  This frail, little life could be worth having, worth enjoying. V’s eyes close again on an unsteady, fearful exhale.  He just so dearly wants it all to be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come check out my [tumblr ](http://rednaelo.tumblr.com)if you like.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you wouldn't believe how much i struggled with this one, folks. but wow was it awesome when i finally came out the other side. 
> 
> by god, if you experience at least one (1) emotion by the time you get to the end of this chapter, then i've done my job right.
> 
> thank you very much to my beta reader. u know who u are ilu. 
> 
> -Bec

On top of the blankets, pulled up high enough to hide his mouth, Nero’s coat is draped over V while he sleeps.  Nero stands with his hands braced against either side of the doorframe, peering in to watch the gentle rise and fall of V’s shoulders for two whole minutes before he remembers.  Yeah, it’s fucking cold outside and he really needs that coat.

He needs it but like hell is he going to take it. Nero could bring every blanket in the house here to compensate for its loss but he doesn’t have the slightest urge to pursue that idea.   V’s fingers clutch at one hem and pull it close as he turns his face towards the pillow in his sleep.  Nero would rather walk out of this house shirtless and barefoot than take his coat back from V now.

Nico lays on the horn outside and Nero flinches, biting back the snap of frustration that he’d ordinarily let fly. He checks back on V but the noise hasn’t woken him.  Relieved, Nero quietly steps away from V’s room, collects his weapons and closes the door carefully when he leaves.

“Shit, it’s cold,” Nero hisses, breath blooming in steam before he climbs eagerly into the heated van.  His hands go right to the vents, twitching to get the frost out of his fingertips.

“I say after work’s done, we go loot the malls for some winter duds” Nico says while she guns down the familiar avenue towards the west end.  Nero sets his brow and just stares out the windshield.

“Eh, let’s go tomorrow,” Nero says.  V spent all of yesterday sleeping for the most part, and not doing much but drinking water and staring at the walls when he was awake.  Leaving him there on his own for too long….  It’d be shitty of Nero to just do that without making sure V would be okay with it.

Thankfully, Nico just shrugs.

“Sure,” she says before tucking a fresh cigarette between her lips. “Should find out V’s sizes, too.  Can’t imagine he’s all that warm in that getup of his.”

“Mmh.”

V needs his own coat.  Something long and warm that he can bundle up in.  In black, Nero thinks.  Though he doesn’t look too bad in blue, either.

 

* * *

 

The house is quiet when Nero returns, same way it’s always been.  But it’s different now.  The difference between the silence of a tomb and the silence of the dawn. 

Instead of letting the door swing shut on its hinges and slam, Nero keeps his hand steady on the knob, waiting for the latch to click into place.  He listens.  And maybe he’s still just a delusional idiot, but the house itself has changed.  It’s less like Nero just invaded and conquered and more like this is home.  V’s presence fills every space like that day when Nero stepped out into the morning and could smell the first frost incoming, thrilling him for the onset of autumn.

Nero steps on the heels of his boots to pull them off and sets Red Queen by the entryway before he beelines for the open door of V’s bedroom.  He hasn’t bothered closing that door at all, Nero’s noticed.  Maybe he just doesn’t feel like it’s worth the hassle.  Maybe he’s just too tired to care about it.

Or maybe he’s just not here.  Nero stands at the open doorway and stares into the room, which is lit but empty. Nothing but the blankets pulled down from where V was sleeping and is no longer.  His coat isn’t there either. Nero turns away from the empty room and leans around towards the bathroom, but no, it’s also dark and unoccupied.  The couch is empty; Nero didn’t accidentally walk right past him napping there.

Since Nero brought him home from the nightclub, V has been laboring over every step taken, leaning on his cane like it was the only thing between him and all the havoc gravity would love to wreak on him.  The brisk bite of mid-November has kept its teeth on V, making him shiver for every inch of unblanketed skin so like hell did he just decide to go shambling outside on his own. 

Silence squeezes down on Nero until all that’s left is his obnoxious fucking heartbeat taking residence in his head, which feels too full and too empty all the same.

V couldn’t have left, Nero argues to himself once again, stuck where he’s standing.

No, he just disappeared. He always disappears.

Right, Nero thinks distantly while his insides shudder and seize up tight.  Because V was never actually here in the first place.  Nero’s been dreaming.  He brought the deepest agonies of his loneliness to life.  So as soon as he left V behind….

Nero walks and he’s not even in his own body.  He takes steps outside of himself and away and all he can feel is the inside of his throat: full and bulging like it’s stuffed with compacted sand.  All of the spit in his mouth has dried up and he’s scorched ash from the pit of his stomach to his charring bones. Instinctually, his body’s reacting like he’s about to pull the Devil out, like this is fight or flight and Nero’s always elected fight.  It’s burning up his spinal column only Nero thinks that if he opens his mouth now, he won’t roar, he’ll just fucking shatter.

Piloted by his last cogent thought, Nero pivots himself around the newel of the bannister and wills himself upwards.  To….  He can’t think; he doesn’t know.  He could get the bottle of Jack from off the nightstand and commit it to his blood like an oath.  He could drink until he has an excuse to not be the dipshit idiot that he is and let it burn him up completely.  He could tear all the way to the wound of the Qliphoth. Throw himself into it. Hunt Dante and Vergil and fucking _cannibalize_ them for leaving him alone in this city.

V’s at the top of the stairs.  Sitting alone with head against the wall, eyes closed, Nero’s coat wrapped around him like a cloak.

The most pathetic noise of desperation croaks out of Nero, escaped like vermin out of a trap: liberated and hideous.  His whole body deflates until he’s hunched over the bottommost step, both hands in his hair.  His heart is as obnoxious as it can possibly be, though the Devil recedes like a flame snuffed with a handful of sand.  Nero squeezes his eyes shut as tight as they can go and pulls on his hair.

“Christ,” he hisses and when he looks back up, V hasn’t gone anywhere.  Hasn’t even stirred. 

Nero’s eyes hurt like a bitch.

Heart still battering on his sternum like it’s laughing at him, Nero crawls on clammy hands and dirty knees all the way up the stairs, carefully avoiding V’s cane where it rests on the step beneath his feet.  He settles in at V’s side and clenches his teeth, taking each breath in slow counts of seven.  V’s cheeks are bright with flush and his hair is sweaty-gray at the roots.  He breathes in shallow inhales and short exhales and too many seconds between the two, like his body has to remind itself to keep working each time. 

It was so easy to convince himself.  To just believe that V had vanished into nothing and Nero had just manifested him some place where his misery and desperation mixed.   He hadn’t even checked everywhere before he jumped to the most magnificent conclusion his paranoid little mind could cook up and freaked himself the fuck out over nothing.

Nero sighs and slumps into his hand, scratching his short nails over his scalp and forehead and face. The shame feels too acutely like Dante calling him dead weight and telling him to keep out. Here he is, so wrapped up in his own bullshit that he can’t see sense, can’t see past his own made-up wounds to be of some real use.  V’s the one playing narcoleptic on the staircase, looking like the flu came to make a home in him.

Nero reaches out and (doesn’t panic over the thought of V disappearing when he tries to touch him) puts his hand on V’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says.  Then louder.  “Hey, V.”

V is completely still in every way, except for his eyes, which open slowly, like a morning glory opening to the morning light.  Somehow just as neat to watch…. Nero swallows to wet his throat and makes himself pull a familiar smirk onto his lips. 

“You picked a shit place to nap,” Nero says.

V’s eyes close once again, a deep, soft inhale filling him up.  Nero’s gaze wanders, curious and cataloguing, and fixates on V’s neck, on the fluttering pulse beneath his translucent skin.

“What the hell you doing sleeping on the stairs, huh?” Nero asks V’s throat and the makes himself look at V’s face as he shifts and stretches.

“My curiosity,” V rasps and Nero forgets the disguise of his easy smile as it slips off of him in surprise.  Jeez, V sounds _wrecked_. “I wanted to explore,” V explains.  “Managed to climb the stairs.  I sat to rest.  Couldn’t find the strength to stand again.”

“Well, you look sick as hell,” Nero tells him, trying for flippant but it just sounds like he’s bitching about it. “C’mon,” he says before V can come out of his sleep-haze enough to be bothered.

“I can’t stand on my own,” V protests as Nero gets his hands under him.

“Yeah, I got that,” Nero huffs.  “I’m taking you to….”  Not Nero’s room.  It’s a shithole.  And probably smells.  “There’s another bedroom up here.  I’ll get you there, just….  Yeah, lean on me, it’s alright, I gotcha.”

V’s body is fever-warm and his every limb wobbles unsteadily, trembling with chills, as Nero hauls him to the master bedroom.  The one Nero hasn’t touched since he staked this squat for himself.

“Damn, though, you probably should’ve skipped the field trip,” Nero says before he stoops and kicks up V’s cane into his waiting hand. 

“I do feel better than I did before,” V tells him.

Nero snorts.  “You do.”  Bullshit.

“The pain’s not as sharp,” V says.

“What pain?” Nero asks, frowning as V’s sweltering body presses up in a sticky line against him.  The scent of spilled-then-dried demon blood revitalizes and fills the air between them with its sour stench.  Nero hopes to god it doesn’t make V’s stomach heave.

V’s only answer is a soft sigh, worn from the misery of standing and walking when his body doesn’t have the will for it. 

Nero twists the knob to the master bedroom with a hand already full of V’s cane and nudges the door open with his knee.  It’s utterly pristine save for the sparse coat of dust over every surface.  Even the bed; when Nero lowers V onto the comforter, a puff of dust envelops him and sends him into a coughing fit. 

“Shit,” Nero mutters, “Sorry, hang on.”  He ducks out of the room and takes the stairs three at a time to get V a glass of water and snag one of the blankets off his bed.  At least V isn’t coughing anymore when Nero gets back to him, passing off what he brought before he goes to open the windows and hopefully get some of the dust out of the room.

“Thank you,” V says as he spreads the blanket over his legs and puts his arms through the sleeves of Nero’s coat.  In the dusk’s glow, all the dust in the room swirls and shimmers. Maybe it would’ve just been better to take V downstairs.  He’s settled in now; would just be a pain in the ass for them both to make him get up again.

“Fuck, I need a drink,” Nero decides as he pushes away from the window.  After this evening’s roster of emotional whiplash, digging the Hennessy out of the stash downstairs sounds like the best idea in the fucking world.

“Are you going to that club?” V asks him and Nero lingers halfway to the door.

“Nah,” he sighs.  Yeah, no, not at all.  Leaving V here alone again, fighting a fever, would make him feel like shit and he already feels like shit when he goes to Flicker.  Nero’s not sure what he’d do to deal with Double Shit but his money’s on blackout drinking and starting fights. “Thinkin’ I’d just grab a bottle I keep here.”

“If you don’t mind it, I would enjoy the company,” V says.  Wow, yeah, Nero realizes, his brain a little late to the party.  Fuck drinking alone, he’s actually got a guest in his play-pretend house now. 

“Yeah?” he asks.  “I’ll be keeping all the liquor to myself, though, you got it?  You stick to water.”

V chuckles.

“Agreed,” he says. “I’ve spent all my day sleeping; I’ll be awake whether I want to or not and I’d rather not just lay here idly.”

V sits with his hands limp in his lap and his hair stuck to his forehead and neck where the fever has dampened his skin with sweat. His eyes are as deep-dark and full of thoughts that Nero has only ever guessed at.  But he’s always wanted to know…. 

“Alright,” Nero says with a smile at the corner of his mouth.  “Gimme a minute; I’m gonna shower first.”  He leaves V settling down into the pillows, a quiet murmur of, “I’ll be here,” following him out.

 

* * *

 

V’s eyes open like it’s a struggle when Nero returns wearing clean clothes and carrying the bottle of X.O and a lowball glass.   But then he just gives a bare little nod and tilts his head towards the armchair near the bed. 

“Right there,” V says.  “Tell me…. What has become of Red Grave City since I last saw it?”

“Uh,” Nero replies intelligently.  He plops into the armchair and scoots it forward over the rug until his knees bump up against the mattress.  “Well, last time you saw it, it was going to shit. And now it’s shit.”

“I see,” V says. Nero catches the flicker of a smile as V settles back against all the propped-up pillows.  “You seem to be doing well for yourself, considering.”

“Guess so,” Nero agrees lightly.  Because it’s easier than bringing up how living’s gotten its conveniences back but everything else has gotten unbearable.  Waking up to silence. Having to threaten himself to renege on the promises he made just to get his cowardice to shut the fuck up. When did just doing the same thing he’s always done turn into a challenge?

Nero glugs some cognac into his glass and downs it in a shot.  Then pours some more.

“You’ve done enough to bring people back to the city,” V tells him.  In spite of himself, Nero smiles.  V’s not even offering him praise, just stating an observation obvious to anyone.  But it feels better than any of the congratulations that Nero’s ever gotten on his work, somehow.

“Yeah, it’s not too bad for normies, now,” he says, slumping forward to lean his elbows on his knees.  “Middle of town’s still full of holes.  Cave-ins are still happening every now and then.  Half the time I’m beating back demons, I’ve gotta worry about the buildings falling over if I sneeze too loud.”

V tilts his head, never taking his eyes off of Nero.  Eyes that are a little hazy from fever and the bags under them are bruisey-blue, veins visible in the paper-thin skin of his eyelids.  His breathing is still off-kilter, lopsided from how sick he is (with whatever he’s sick with), but the slight smile on his lips is honest.  It warms Nero better than the Hennessy.

“Sounds like an adventure,” V says, blinking slow over his smile.

“Maybe. More like a chore nowadays,” Nero admits.  The resigned apathy comes easier if he doesn’t look V in the eyes; he takes another drink to give himself an excuse to break contact.  But he goes back to V’s gaze like a planet pulled into a star’s orbit. “Was kinda fun at first. The hottest days still weren’t too bad once the sun went down.  I’d start hunting once it got dark and stay up all night, bashing demons until Nico got tired.  We’d start bonfires in the streets and filch marshmallows from the grocery stores.”  He sits upright and digs around looking for his phone.  “I got pictures,” Nero says, “Here, look.”

Nero flips to the photos and holds his phone out for V to thumb through.

“Nico took most of ‘em, actually,” he says after he sucks down what’s left of his glass, only to refill it again.  V is quiet, studiously lingering on each photograph as he scrolls.  The silence sticks like a catch at the back of Nero’s throat and he swallows it down instead of letting it choke him.

“We were wild,” Nero tells V, thinking about him and Nico tearing through the streets, blasting music out of the windows, making a game of how many headshots Nero could land while Nico stomped the gas pedal to the floor.  “I felt like I was just a fuckin’ kid again.  Could do whatever I wanted. Make a mess and yell as loud as I liked and wreck the world for fun.”

It was awesome for like two weeks, maybe.  Then he woke up one afternoon and going back out into Red Grave, city of fuckall but death, just sounded like a sentence for a crime he never committed.  The summer vacation was over.  It was just Nero sitting in bed, staring at his hands for an hour, the emptiness in him bloating until he couldn’t move.  Nero remembers it so sharply that he can feel it now, mixing in his stomach full of nothing but booze.  He guzzles more cognac like it’ll make anything better.

V suddenly laughs.  A sudden, sharp, “A-ha!” like it caught him off guard as much as it startled Nero.  He brings his empty hand to his mouth to hover against his grinning lips.

“What?” Nero asks, starting to smile himself as he leans in to look.  V turns the phone towards him and Nero sniggers in appreciation.

Pictured is him and Nico standing side-by-side, lit by bonfire light, Nero remembers.  They’re both shirtless and dirty, sneering at the camera that Nico’s holding at perfect selfie-angle.  There’s demon blood painted all over their faces and torsos in tribal patterns and cusswords (backwards in the photo).  Nico’s holding a spare Devil Breaker pointed at her temple, digits folded like a gun to her head with her tongue lolling out.  Nero’s flipping the bird with one hand and grabbing his crotch with the other, a smiley face curved on his stomach.  His nipples are the eyes.

“Forgot about that one,” Nero says, taking the phone for a moment to look closer.

“How drunk were you both?” V asks, still smiling.  His eyes glimmer with it.

“Only a little,” Nero says, shaking his head.  V scoffs, taking the phone when Nero passes it back. “I’m serious, we maybe had like…a couple a beers between us.  We were just riding the high of that day.”

“Must’ve been good hunting,” V imagines.

“Oh, yeah,” Nero says.  “Those were the good times.”  Nero has being treating this brand-name cognac like it’s cheap beer instead of the good shit that he looted for himself but, fuck, if getting drunk quickly will make him stop thinking shit thoughts…. He swallows it down with purpose.

“That’s demon blood, isn’t it?” V says, glancing over at Nero with a twist of amused disgust in his smirk. “Did you just…collect it?”

“There was an empusa corpse stuck under the van after Nico did a ramp-jump and just landed on it and we just…fucked around after we dug it out.”

“I’m sure that smelled delightful.”

“We were both ripe as shit by that point; had a hard time caring,” Nero snorts.

“Feel free to ignore this if you like,” V starts and Nero’s already staring straight into him, challenging, “You and Nico…?”

“Pfft,” Nero shakes his head.  “Why, cuz she’s got her shirt off?  Nah, she just felt like doing it.  Screamed about how under-boob sweat made her wanna die and just flung it off.”  V laughs again, snickering behind his hand as he pictures it.  Nero smiles.  “It was hot as fuck this summer.  Hot as hell and stank like hell and we both stopped giving a shit about decency pretty quick.”

Nero has photos on his phone for those few scorching days at the beginning and then they run out just like the good times did.  V goes through the rest of the album in less than a minute; Nero downs the remainder of his glass just as efficiently. 

“Tell me more,” V says after he’s done, laying the phone down on the bed and folding his hands over his stomach.  “Tell me anything.”

“Anything, huh,” Nero says and tops off his glass again. 

“I’m craving more stories,” V says.  His shoulders shift against the pillows as he makes himself comfortable and when he coughs quietly, Nero suddenly remembers his fucking manners and picks up the glass of water, handing it over.  “Thank you.”

“Alright, alright, I got a good one, it’s so fucking dumb, you’ll love it,” Nero says grinning wide.  He scoots to the edge of his chair and does his best not to slosh onto the sheets.  V raises one eyebrow but his smile says he’s ready for Nero to impress him.  “Alright so, back when I was with, uh….  I used to run with this group back in the day, won’t go into it, they’re toast now, whatever.  But they’d scrape in new recruits every year or so to make sure their numbers didn’t piddle out.  And this one year they brought in these two guys, Kaminski and Crawford.

“Alright, so, Kaminski was born over in Poland, yeah?  Raised there for a few years and then his family emigrated and he’d lived here ever since.  And like, everyone who knew him knew that because he’d always go on about missing his gramma’s traditional recipes and he had like that little bit of an accent when he talked.  Crawford was from like…Assbackwards Rednecktown, USA and he was about as smart as a bag of dicks.”

V huffs a laugh.  Nero grins at him.

“So they didn’t know each other before they came on but they like, they trained together and shared barracks and made it through the initiation and shit together, all that.  By the end of the year, they were like callin’ each other best friends and giving each other shit over the stupid things they got in trouble for.  So, good pals, right?

“Alright, so, one day, I’m talkin’ with Kaminski and he’s telling me about how on his next leave, he’s got tickets to go back and see his family and he can’t wait to like, eat all the Polish food he’s been craving for the past million years. And he’s telling me this and Crawford, who’s just been standing there and listening in goes, ‘Wait…you aren’t from here?’ And me and Kaminski just stare at him because, like, what the fuck, right? And Kaminski’s like, ‘Yeah, man, what the hell, how long have you known me?’ and I’m fuckin’ laughing my ass off because this guy is already so fuckin’ stupid but this is just on another level, you know?

“So Crawford’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, alright, sure. So when did your family move here?’  And Kaminski’s like, ‘Oh, well Poland hit this like awful economic crisis a while back so we came over then.’  And without missing a fucking beat, Crawford goes, ‘Oh, right! The potato famine!’”

V’s jaw drops, slowly, like he can’t even believe it and Nero sniggers himself to fucking pieces. 

“I’m serious!” he insists through his snorting laughter.

“Oh, my god,” V sighs and puts his head in his hands before his shoulders start to shake.  Nero can’t breathe. He spills cognac on his pants.  It isn’t long before V’s heaving laughter turns into full-on wheezes and Nero has to shakily press the glass of water back into his hands.  But they’re both grinning wide enough to split their cheeks and Nero hasn’t had this for months.  This joy that’s glowing inside, overflowing through the spaces of his ribs to fill him up.

The booze is probably helping.  Nero takes another drink and tries not to snort it up through his sinuses. V wipes tears from his eyes; his smile is big and beautiful.

“You want another one?” Nero threatens gleefully.

“No, please, I don’t think I’ll survive,” V gasps, still grinning, waving Nero back before he takes another sip of water.  His other hand clutches at his ribs as he reaches to put the glass back on the nightstand.  “Oh…that was more than a little painful,” V sighs, but he’s chuckling again right afterwards with a shake of his head. Safe to assume that if laughing hurts him, V isn’t too upset about it.  If anything, he seems relieved, rosy-cheeked and his eyes a little more lucid. 

“Oh, hey!” Nero suddenly gets to his feet.  “Hang on a second.”

He leaves the room and hurries back to his own bedroom, going straight to the dresser.  In the top drawer, under a bunch of clothes that don’t belong to Nero, is the thin leather-bound volume with its embossed ‘V’ on the cover.  Nero digs it out and takes it back to the master bedroom, where V is waiting with patient curiosity. It’s pretty gratifying, seeing V’s shoulders suddenly straighten when he realizes what Nero’s holding.

“Been hangin’ onto it,” Nero tells V as he passes the book over.  Hanging onto it, sure.  At the bottom of a drawer he never opens.  Definitely safe and absolutely out of the way so Nero wouldn’t have to see it and remember it. “Figured you’d like it back.”

V’s hand rests over the cover, still, for a moment.

“It means more to me than I think you realize,” he says, “that you would return it to me rather than Vergil.”

Nero blinks as that particular bit of revelation settles in.  Restlessly, he cracks his knuckles and shifts on the mattress, avoiding the sincerity in V’s eyes when they rise to find him.

“Thank you, Nero,” V says.

“I didn’t even think about it,” Nero admits, a meaningless laugh bursting out at the end.  “It was always yours, you were always holding it.”  Except for the last time Nero had seen it, when Vergil had tossed it to him and it just landed on the ground.

V’s fingers against the pages are so careful.  It’s more than just delicacy due to weakness; he touches the book like he adores it, stroking the first page to turn to the next.  Nero swallows all of his words thickly.  The liquor burns him from the pit of his stomach to the edges of his ribs.

“Where I dwelled in Vergil’s soul,” V starts to say, and Nero lifts his chin to show that he’s listening, “It was a little like a dream.  Have you ever been able to lucid dream, Nero?”

“Never bothered to try,” Nero says, leaning his elbows on his knees.  “Didn’t really feel like the payoff was worth all the effort.”  

“I was of the same mind,” V says, smiling a little.  “Until there was nothing left for me to do with my time but dream.  It was so bizarre.”   The uncomfortable grimace on V’s lips tells Nero it was probably a lot more than bizarre. 

“More like a nightmare?” he asks, though he understands that he’s just opened himself to bearing whatever horrors V had to contend with while locked in Vergil’s consciousness.  If V trusts Nero enough to share them, that is.  Nero frowns.  Which would be worse?  Knowing or not knowing?

“It varied,” V says with a small sigh.  “Some moments more tolerable than others.  But I gained a rather useful ability to craft my mental landscapes, seemingly unfettered.  Save for one caveat.”  He leans his back against the headboard and gives a bitter grin to the ceiling.  “Vergil had constant awareness of my movements within his consciousness.  And would exert his own control over my imaginings if he didn’t like what I conjured.  Particularly, I was never allowed to have the things that he laid personal claim over.”

V turns his head a little and peers down at Nero and Nero meets that worn, unhappy smile with what drunken courage he can muster.

“Any memory from my childhood, any love I harbored, any possessions,” V lifts the book, rocks it back and forth in the cradle of his hand, “that were cherished….  I could try to dream of them but they would all fade away.”

The book is brought to V’s chest, held there dearly, his pale, scarred hand splayed over the embossing. Nero stares and traces the lines of the blank tattoos instead of looking into V’s eyes.

“It’s just…it’s a rather satisfying sort of relief that you saw fit to give it to me,” V says, and he laughs.  “Like vindication.  So thank you for that in particular.”

“Sure,” Nero says, thoroughly hollowed. There’s a ton of nasty feelings vying to fill him up right now but Nero’s pretty positive that they’ll all suck.  So he decides to just stick with feeling drunk because it’s the least likely to make him do something stupid and ain’t that just ironic.  “Least you got out of that mess. Sucks that your body’s halfway to quitting already.”

And with that brainless observation, a sudden, quiet fear has slipped in alongside the inebriation. Nero winces with it, pressing his face into his hands as his elbows sink into the mattress.

“Fuck, don’t be dying, alright?” he groans, muffled through his hands.  “Don’t fuckin’ do that to me, I swear to god, I’ll do something unholy and drag you back just to cuss you out if you die on me.”

V laughs again, gently.  There’s a sudden, subtle gentleness of his hand coming to rest against the top of Nero’s head.  Nero raises an eyebrow at him through the space between his fingers and V just rubs his hand back and forth.

“I feel better today than yesterday,” V assures him.  “I’m sure as long as I have your help, I’ll continue to recover.  Fret not.”

“Okay,” Nero mumbles. Who knows if that’s actually true but V sounds like he believes it. That’s enough to get the sick twist of paranoia to loosen up in Nero’s gut.  God, where’s his glass?  He’d reach for it but V hasn’t stopped ruffling Nero’s hair.  It’s nice.  Somehow keeps the quiet afloat and drowns out the static that Nero has always kept snuffed with drink. So if he leans into V’s hand a little bit rather than nudging his wrist away to go for the bottle again…. Well, V did this on his own; it’s not a problem if Nero likes it.

V’s fingers work in slow circles against Nero’s scalp and Nero just lets himself deflate until he’s face-down on the mattress, eyes closing while the cognac sings him a lullaby with every heartbeat.

“Be honest with me if my reliance turns into a nuisance, won’t you?” V says as he strokes Nero’s hair.

“’S okay,” Nero slurs gently.  “Doesn’t matter to me. Anything’s better than the shit I put up with now.  This is nice….”

The room is quiet except for the bluster of the night breezes that slip through the open window.  They ghost over Nero’s bare skin and goosebumps break out while he’s warmed from the inside by the booze in his belly and V’s hand rubbing at the back of his head.  Docility fills him up and weighs him gently down like a blanket over his body.  Which is so utterly backwards considering half the time he drinks, he ends up rowdy and handsy with strangers or restless and out chasing demons on his own in the night.

V’s fingers still in their slow circling and Nero cracks an eye open, watching him reach for his glass of water.  There’s only a bit left; V swallows it all down.

“Y’need more?” Nero asks, shifting as he prepares to stand. 

“No, it’s alright,” V says.  His hand moves to the back of Nero’s neck and firms, just a little.  “I’m fine for now.”

Nero doesn’t need telling twice.  His eyes close; his weight sinks back into the mattress. 

“’S is a really nice bed,” he says as V rubs his thumb against the shorter hair at the back of Nero’s neck. 

“It is,” V agrees.  “If I weren’t so abysmal with the stairs, I might want to stay here more permanently.”

“When you’re better,” Nero says.  He rubs his forehead against the pillow of his arms and breathes in a sigh that wants to turn into a yawn but doesn’t quite. “When ‘s not as hard….”

Between them, silence stretches, minute after minute.  Nero’s warm despite the open window.  And not once does V stop the slow, consistent stroke of his fingers against Nero’s head.  He could sleep like this.  Just give up consciousness and let himself be dragged under and it might not even be a bad idea. 

“You okay?” he asks instead because V’s been quiet the whole time despite the constancy of his touch.

“I was visualizing,” V says.  “It’s an extension of what I did when I was within Vergil’s soul.”

“So...like, daydreaming,” Nero says.

“More or less.”

“’Bout the stuff you couldn’t have before?”

When V doesn’t answer immediately, Nero peeks up at him.  He’s looking right back at Nero with his head inclined just a little.  Eyes dark and clear, the fever-haze burned away, and his smile patient. 

“Indeed,” he says. 

“Don’t have to say, but I’m curious as hell,” Nero says, adjusting his shoulders to get comfortable again.  The Devil Breaker’s pressed a chafing line against his cheek but he’s finding it hard to give a shit.  “Couldn’t ever figure out what goes on in your head.”

“Here, visualize this one with me,” V says.  His hand rests against the back of Nero’s skull, cupping it lightly while his fingers scratch back and forth. 

Nero closes his eyes. 

“There is a field that stretches from one horizon to the other, surrounding you on all sides.  The sky is dark, full of clouds so heavy with rain that the air all around you is tinged purple.  The atmosphere is warm and damp with the scent of an impending storm: you can feel it every time you take a breath. There stands a single tree in the field.   It’s hundreds of years old with a trunk so wide you couldn’t wrap your arms around it.  It grows tall and solitary in the middle of the field and you spend time in its shade, waiting for the rain to fall. 

“The grass beneath you is thick and soft, each blade bending gently beneath your feet, cushioning you when you sit and comforting you when you lay down.  The wind pushes the clouds overhead.  You watch them roll by and the branches of the tree sway, its many leaves rustle.  There, in the distance, you hear the first rumble of thunder.  Lightning fills the clouds and flashes over their billowing forms, illuminating hues of violet and gray, but it never seems to strike the ground.  The thunder is always gentle.  The rain begins to fall but you remain warm and dry beneath the tree.”

V’s soothing fingers persist.  His voice stays low and constant.  Nero falls asleep there, beneath the tree that V dreamed into being, in the midst of a storm that will never hurt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i shit you not, the potato famine story legitimately happened. i wish i were joking.  
> i post sporadically on [my tumblr](https://rednaelo.tumblr.com/) but at the very least [please look at this gorgeous artwork of V that my wife drew for me](https://vetranyx.tumblr.com/post/185305530827/lil-thing-for-rednaelo) because it Gives Me Life.


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took too long and doesn't live up to how long it took to write but it's HERE. oh right, also, i added some stuff to chapter 1, if you care to go back and re-read it.
> 
> thank u for patience: here are ur favorite boys.
> 
> -Bec

He had revisited the graveyard a time or two since, followed the lines of the headstones, trailed his fingers along their carved and dirty epitaphs. Read the names.  ‘Mother’s Embrace’ and ‘Playing in the Garden’ and ‘The Old Record Player.’  There was a stone for Dante.  Another for Nero – one gleaming new and untouched with the earth beneath it still soft and bared of grass.   And dozens more.

There isn’t a single grave left now.  V stood over the pristine granite of Nero’s headstone and erased it and all the others with one swipe of his hand.  He grew an oak tree from seed to sapling, planted in the naked earth of Nero’s grave, and left it to flourish in the empty space.  Every stone is gone but V remembers what each of them marked.  He’ll have an orchard when he’s done.  A forest.  A garden of trees and flowers and growing, good life.

But he doesn’t dream of the young garden within him; his mind lends him spaces of decrepit concrete walls and ruined hotel rooms, broken windows and crumbling crown moulding. V stretches his aching spine over uneven pavement and broken glass.  He rolls onto his side and his cheek presses against smoke-scented carpet. 

Nero catches him when V lists and stumbles upright.  He smiles down, radiant in blue fire, and V takes Nero’s face in his hands and kisses his forehead to bless him.  He kisses Nero’s cheeks one after the other to show his affection.  He kisses Nero’s mouth and the bright blue flames touch V’s lips, burning him for his greed.  Tongues of flame stroke his soft pallet and fill his stomach with a scorch that’s so sweet to him before he turns to ash.

Nico kicks the front door over and over and Nero is squeezing a bruise into V’s wrist and this is what wakes him. 

“Nero,” V groans, his name thick at the back of V’s dry tongue.  He pulls his arm; Nero grips tighter.  “Nero, let go.”

“Mnnhhhhgh?”

V folds his fingers together and tugs again.  His hand slips out of Nero’s sweaty palm and half-conscious, Nero snatches him back.  Then Nico rails against the front door again and Nero jolts awake and leaps back and the chair he was sleeping in bangs against the floor.  V winces at the sound. Cradled in his hand, his wrist is rash-red-and-purple and he doesn’t have a spare thought for how he feels about it other than weary.  He just lifts his head and blinks groggily at Nero.

“Shit,” Nero curses to the corner of the room while he stoops to lift the chair.  Nico’s started yelling. She’s absolutely indecipherable but it’s not like it’s at all difficult to hear her; the window’s still open, pale curtains lifting in the cold morning air.  V shivers at the breeze and Nico wails and gnashes and Nero stands by the bed and scowls at himself.

Not the most auspicious start to the day, but V finds it’s still a marked improvement from the morning before, when he sat up in bed and debated near fifteen minutes over whether he was going to vomit into his own lap.

“Fuck, I’m— I don’t know why I did that, I’m sorry,” Nero says, grimacing down at the ugly, darkening ring around V’s wrist.  His hands are halfway raised, reaching and flinching and full of a boy’s restless wish to make right what he’s accidentally harmed.  V meets his eyes.  He couldn’t be bothered to be upset about this even if Nero had snapped his arm in the night.

“It’s alright,” he tells him.  “Go open the door before Nico breaks it down.”

Nero presses his lips together and takes a step back before he just lets out a sigh and turns.  Nico kicks the door again and hollers something swift and unintelligible. 

“Chill the fuck out you goddamn wrench-head!” Nero shouts right back.

Yes, this morning is preferable. 

V slips indulgently beneath the blankets, flipping them over his head and nuzzling into the pillow.  The room is frigid but the warmth beneath the downy comforter is so blissfully cozy.  His knees draw up towards his stomach and V yawns.

He’s lulled into sleep by the muffled voices downstairs and the gentle, throbbing reminder of Nero’s hold on his wrist.

Peacefully, he doesn’t dream.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Nero is saying – not near but not quietly – reeling V from the darkness of sleep to the pillowy warmth of drowsing in bed.  “You want food?”

V turns onto his other side and pulls the blankets down just enough to squint at Nero hovering in the doorway with a thin smile and a spatula in his hand.  Or the spatula is his hand.  V presses his fingers and rubs against his eyelids, a yawn unfolding deep in his chest.

“How long?” he croaks at Nero.  The pillows he’s pulled about his shoulders in a nest are much more alluring than attempting to creak to his feet and fill his stomach.  But then the soft and long-ago-familiar fragrance of warm bread wafts into the back of V’s mouth and he makes a noise like, “Oh,” and sleep is fading fast.  Was one of the graves for his love of thick-sliced toast and apricot preserves and soft salted butter?  Because the memory weakens V with singlemindedness and a wet mouth.

“Uh, well, food’s already cooked if you want some. I’ll bring up a plate if the stairs are gonna be a bitch for you again today.”

“Ah,” V says, rolling to his back.  “I don’t know yet if I can stand.”  He says so, but the more his body awakens, the better an inventory he can take.  The soreness has softened around his shoulders.  Before, he had rocks bulging in his stomach and his ribcage constricted tight around every breath.  Not this morning, though, and the fever’s evaporated. 

“I’ll get a plate for you,” Nero volunteers without prompting. 

“Give me fifteen minutes,” V says to the ceiling cast in the warm lamplight. 

“And then what?” Nero says.  He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe and he’s so serious but one of his arms is a spatula and his bottom lip is pouting out in skepticism and V thinks about kissing him and burning. 

“If I’m not down by then, I’d appreciate it if you’d come help me with the stairs,” V says.

“Sure,” Nero says with a shrug.  “I’ll leave you to it.”  Then he leaves.  His steps are heavy enough that V can follow the sound down the stairwell and hear Nico ask him something, Nero’s low answer in return, and the shuffling of cutlery and flatware.  How positively domestic.  There was a grave for the few occasions when his whole family were together.  So few that they could be buried under one headstone….

V slides his legs out from under the blankets and sets his feet carefully on the floor.  The hardwood at the edge of the rug is frigid pressed against the tips of his toes.  V gropes at the balled-up mass of Nero’s coat and tugs it loose so he can wrap it around his shoulders.  The bruise Nero left on his wrist has blackened terribly.  Unnaturally. 

“Mmh….”  V thumbs against the place where the scars of his tattoos overlap the ache.  But it doesn’t hurt when he presses.  His thumb smears along the darkening ring and the color bleeds right into lines of his tattoos, filling them perfectly.  V blinks.  He presses again and the bruise is chased into the blank scars like ink poured into a vessel.

“Well, then.”  Perhaps not a bruise at all….

V stands cautiously but finds his balance is steady. One slow, indulgent inhale has him invigorated.  The scent of the food downstairs is pleading with him and V’s buckling to the temptation rather than his failing muscles.  He takes his cane – eyeing the darkened cuff of his tattoo – and leaves the bedroom to attempt the stairs.

 

* * *

 

“Y’want more eggs?”  Nico pushes another helping onto V’s plate while his mouth is still full of toast and jam.  “Y’need more protein, man, you’re a sack a’ skin and nothin’.”

“He’ll eat it if he wants,” Nero says from his place in front of the frying pan.  “Don’t bother him.”

“I ain’t botherin’!” Nico yaps and lines up sausage links on V’s plate next to the scrambled eggs.  “Yer colorin’s a lot nicer today.  Feelin’ better?”

V swallows and his tongue swipes away a smudge of blueberry on his upper lip. 

“Considerably, thank you,” he says to Nico and spears one of the sausages with his fork. 

“Yeah cuz I was startin’ to wonder if I was ever gonna see yer face again, y’know?” Nico sits back in her chair and saws into her stack of syrup-saturated pancakes with the side of her fork.  “Been missin’ that pretty mug a’ yours.”

A grin emerges, quite unanticipated, over V’s lips as he meets Nico’s eyes.

“You flatter me,” he says, low and sweet.  Over by the stove, Nero’s shoulders are inching towards his ears.

“I ain’t blind,” is all Nico has to say. “Prettier than that one over there, anyway.”  Nero scoffs; V smiles at his turned back. 

Nico’s justification for practically kicking the door down was an eagerness over groceries.  There was an ‘import’ run from the next city over and a portion was given in tribute to Nero and Nico. A thanks for their efforts in maintaining the safety of Red Grave and its inhabitants. 

She had an overabundance of perishables that were hauled in a refrigerated truck and then loaded into her van for the two (though, with V, now three) of them to share, and came straight to Nero’s door to stuff his fridge and demand that he cook for her.  Not that V can blame her, rightly.  Perhaps it’s simply because he hasn’t been able to stomach much, but everything Nero’s made for him has been delicious and perfect.  V takes another grateful breath over the fact that he hasn’t felt nauseous at all this morning.  He hopes it might keep.

Nero finally clatters a plate down next to them at the table and starts piling up bacon next to his stack of pancakes.  His Devil Breaker isn’t a spatula anymore; V spots that one next to the stove – stuck in a clay vessel with an assortment of other stirring utensils – and keeps the laugh to himself.  They have a surreal little life here….  It’s a charming dream he’s found himself a part of. 

“Where do you live, Nico?” V asks, since it occurs to him that he hasn’t the faintest idea.

“I’m yer neighbor,” Nico says brightly and juts her elbow towards the front-facing window.  “Right across the way.  No sense in being too far, y’know?  ‘Specially at the beginning.” 

“I thought you would’ve preferred to stay in the same home,” V says. 

“Can’t stand the smoke,” Nero mumbles, one cheek bulging with eggs.

“Or the orgies,” Nico snorts.

“Shut the fuck up, you weren’t having orgies,” Nero gripes back at her.

“Not then I wasn’t, but I sure am now.”

“Bullshit.”

“More’n you anyway, stay mad about it.”

“Whatever.”

V leans against the heel of his hand and regards them with a smile.  It’s familiar.  Not quite the same but the similarities….

“You’re rather like siblings,” V tells them.  To which they both give him baffled and semi-disgusted looks and V turns a laugh into his palm.  “Yes, that too,” he says. 

“Yeah, well, I haven’t run her through with a sword yet,” Nero says with a roll of his eyes before he dives right back to his food.  He shoves more bites into his mouth before he says, “And I never would cuz I’m not a fucking _asshole_.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Nico scoffs.  Nero’s already snarling back with bits of food threatening to spray from his mouth but Nico shoves his face away.  “God, shut up, I know you wouldn’t ever hurt me, don’t get yer panties in a knot, Jesus.  Eugh….”  She wipes her hand off on his pants since she undoubtedly got some of the contents of Nero’s mouth on it. 

“Yes, admittedly, the rivalry between Vergil and Dante surpasses good sense,” V says.

“Been thinkin’ ‘bout that, huh?” Nico asks him.  “It’s fucked up as fuck, y’know, what you gotta deal with.  How you even put up with it?  Think if it were me in your shoes, I’d be drivin’ myself crazy over who I am or who I ain’t and wouldn’t know what the hell to do with myself.”

V laughs but it’s only because Nico’s description is so eloquently uncomplicated.  How astute of her.  Nero eyes V, chewing slowly as he stares. 

“I’m finding the more I think on it, the more vexed I become,” V says to both of them.  He lets his smile speak softly for his fears and gentles his words so that the frustration doesn’t pierce the two of them as sharply as it does himself.  “So I’m being very irresponsible and deciding not to think on it at all.”

“Good,” Nero says.  Like turning a bolt lock or slamming the receiver of a phone.  “You don’t owe either of those assholes anything; don’t bother giving them the time of day in your own head.  They’ve never did anything for you.”

“If only it were that simple,” V says lightly, touching the handle of the nearby butter knife with the tip of his finger.  “You can only walk so far away from something until you’ve managed to circle the globe and find it again.”

“Hey, if there’s a problem, we can just deal with it when it comes up,” Nico says with an easy shrug.  “Nero’s right for once, pretty boy—”

“Fuckin’ _thank you_.”

“—you ain’t gotta bother with breakin’ your head over the logistics a’ nothin’ because you’re a miracle all by yourself, you know?  You ain’t even supposed to be here, but here you are.”

V smiles at her; his heart is far away and so quiet. 

“Right,” he says.  “Here I am, indeed.”

“We’re happy about it,” Nico says.  “It’s nice havin’ the whole team.  Remember when it was just us?”  She smiles back at him, her teeth all showing and her eyes all squinty with her nose scrunching up. 

“I do,” V says.  “Do forgive me for hoping that this time our reunion makes for a better memory.”

Nico’s grinning.  V glances over at Nero to find him smiling in satisfaction at his breakfast. The days have been more than a little arduous so far.  V quietly rubs his wrist beneath the table and only prays that he might have more mornings like this.  The graves are gone from within him.  He promised himself he wouldn’t lean too heavily on the hope that he might get to stay permanently.  But he’s already made himself comfortable wishing it might be so.

Hope for tomorrows to come smells like warm bread and stacks of pancakes.  In his heart, V plants fields of golden wheat and a young maple tree.

 

* * *

 

He showers for the first time since he returned, running the water from the tap for almost thirty minutes just to make the frigid bathroom warm with steam.  V allows himself the better part of the next hour to clean up and dry off again, then wraps himself in warm, black cotton and wool clothing that Nico left on the bed for him. 

Purportedly, the closets in her squat were full of clothes she thought would be perfect for him.  So here V is, standing with bare feet in the still-steamy bathroom, pulling a ribbed turtleneck over his head and tugging it comfortably into place.  He slides the sleeves down and considers the tattoo on his wrist before he conceals it once again.

It bears more investigation.  V has no earthly idea what caused it to happen other than a haphazard hypothesis based on his own dreams and Nero’s desperate grip. 

“Could be,” V mutters as he shifts his weight against the counter and lets it hold him up for a moment.  His ankles and knees have been keener on the task of bearing him vertically today, but he doesn’t want to wear out the good fortune just yet.  Nero promised to accompany him since V decided that he’d throw all caution asunder and take a walk around the neighborhood.

V leaves Nero’s coat on the bed in favor of one Nico brought in dark gray felted wool that has sleeves that actually cover his arms properly.  He takes his cane and his book and successfully navigates the stairs on his own.  Nero’s there at the bottom, wearing a lined leather jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, and fiddling with a scarf in his hands. 

“I’ve kept you waiting,” V says by way of greeting. Nero lifts his eyes, already looking to challenge – _I’ll wait for whatever I damn well please_ – and stops short as V steps from the last stair and draws closer to him.  “Thank you for being patient with me.”  Nero’s eyes are bright and furious with tenderness, like he’s got to wrap its chains around his fists and keep it from wreaking honesty from his lips.

“Not like I was in a hurry to do anything else,” Nero mumbles, and holds out the scarf to V.  “Put this on, it’s cold.”

“Would you mind?” V asks.  He lifts his hands to show that both are full and steps a bit closer.  “Please.” 

And Nero pulls the scarf back towards his chest for a moment before he unfolds it and carefully winds the fabric around V’s neck and shoulders.  He’s got dark circles under his eyes but not the sort that would come from a night of continuously imbibing cognac, V thinks.  He’s blushing.  Just a bit.  V holds his book against his chest while Nero fusses with the scarf.  He supposes he should thank Vergil for being the fool and putting Nero in a grave within his heart, the better to not be hurt by the love of him.  It’s a perfect vengeance to allow himself.  Nero’s attention, Nero’s company.  Nero’s trust and willingness to stand close and keep V warm.

He deserves much more than whatever meagerness V could offer him.

“There,” Nero says, nodding once in satisfaction.  “You wanna hold my arm while we go down the steps, Your Majesty?”  He opens the door and gestures out and he’s smirking back at V but blinks in surprise when V steps right past him, letting his chest brush against Nero’s arm as he passes. 

“I think I can manage,” V says as he steps out into the late morning sun. 

It’s cold.  A bright, beautiful cold that has V’s breath billowing in soft fog from his lips as he stands on the front steps. The sky is a crisp, brilliant blue and cloudless.  V’s body is warm, wrapped up carefully, and he waits for the chill to seize his joints and shiver through his muscles but it’s not so unkind.  Just a sharp stroke against his cheeks and a little nip at his nose, playful. 

Nero pulls the door shut behind them and they step out onto the empty street.  Down the very center of the road, they walk together.  The noisiest thing is V’s cane, tapping down with every other step, ringing dully as the asphalt deadens its metallic chime.

“It’s incredibly quiet,” V notes.  Not that he expected any different.  But there’s not even the ruckus of nearby demons to fill the silence.  It’s just the two of them. 

“Drove me up the damn wall so I started making my own noise,” Nero agrees.

“I think given the circumstances, I’d do much the same,” V says. 

“Not like I did,” Nero chuckles and V can hear memories of starting fires in the streets and breaking windows and shrieking drunk into the night.

“No, perhaps not quite like you,” V says, smiling as he thinks of it. 

“Yeah….  Pretty sure this city is just out to drive us all fuckin’ batshit crazy,” Nero sighs.  “Hopefully Dante and Vergil close the portal before I start thinking Russian Roulette sounds like a productive use of my time.” 

“And then – after the demon hoards have been stemmed and Red Grave no longer needs you to protect it from the supernatural – what’s next for you?” V asks him.

In his quiet moments, when he hasn’t been repainting the canvas of his soul or simply hoping for a next breath unburdened by pain, V has started to ponder what his new life could one day be.  What he’d like it to be.  Possibility is such an expansive and unhelpful thing, though V supposes he’s had the structure of his persistent weakness to shape the realm of what is possible and what is nothing but a fever dream. 

Nero is silent.  V turns to look at him.

The frown on Nero’s lips and the furrow of his brow say it all quite clearly, if it weren’t already made obvious by Nero’s casual references to suicide and the many empty liquor bottles on his kitchen counters.  A frisson of pure fury sears to the front of V’s skull and he sighs it all out of himself at once.  Nero’s been effectively abandoned here and he’s still waiting.  Loyally.  Faithfully.  Fruitlessly.  How much of this cruelty can V take credit for exercising upon Nero? How much is him and how much is Vergil? 

“Guess I’ve been doing this for so long, I forgot something came after,” Nero says, which is about what V expected.  “Fuck, man, I dunno, something else.  Something different.  Something I haven’t been able to do this whole time.  You know what?  I’m going to the beach.  Even if it’s cold as fuck in the middle of winter, I’m going to build shitty sandcastles and go streaking into the ocean.”

V smiles and laughs and also wonders how much of Nero’s posturing is a façade for his uncertainty.  If he’s anything like his father, his uncle….

“And after your naked foray into sand and surf, freezing temperatures be damned?” V asks him.  The wind picks up a bit and fallen leaves go skiddering over the street as they pass. 

“I dunno,” Nero says, resigned.  “Anywhere but here.  Just take Nico and go demon-hunting wherever needs me next.”

“Hmm.”  

It’s as simple as that, it seems.  Only it truly isn’t that simple, V knows.  Nero hasn’t thought of anything better for himself in the spaces of quiet that he’s had here in Red Grave.  He’s only been thinking of tomorrow and the next and the next, remaining right where he is. 

Back when V knew his days were well and truly numbered, he didn’t think on the future either.  Only being whole again.  The inevitability that either he would be reconciled to Urizen or he would simply die.  Whatever ending he met, there was no plan for what was to follow.

Nero is like this.  Nero does not see an ‘after,’ only an ‘end.’ 

“I will continue to recover,” V says. 

“Sure of that?” Nero asks, but not in mockery.  It’s like he’s spared none of his hope for himself and is simply pressing it to V with all of his might.  V’s sure he’s undeserving of this.  But he’s also covetous, greedy for every little thing Nero thinks he’s worthy of.

“I certainly won’t give in easily,” is all V can assure him.  “I will recover and go to a new city.  Somewhere smaller.  Maybe a coastal town: a place where the air is open but I can be among the bustle of people when I crave it.  I’ll have a house of my own, something small: a cottage with bay widows that face the sunset.  I’ll fill the rooms with creeping vine plants that spill over their pots and have a couch that is so comfortable that sometimes when I sit there reading, I’ll end up taking a nap without ever realizing it.”

Around him, the November winds are brisk and bracing, stirring the leaves from the trees that line the boulevard.  It really is so unfortunate that Red Grave it so irreparably damaged – both in structure and by association of troubled memory.  V glances at a car that’s been overturned onto its side from his periphery as they walk.  No, it wouldn’t do to linger here longer than necessary.  Especially not if he wants to draw Nero from the streets of his waking nightmares.

“I’ll plant white roses around my mailbox,” V goes on to say, taking them both far away.  “I’ll line the walkway to my front door with lanterns and hang wind chimes near the door. When the nights are mild, I’ll sleep with the windows open and wake when the sun warms me.  I will teach myself how to cook and how to play the cello and how to garden and paint with watercolors.  I’ll grow tomatoes on my back porch and basil in my windowbox.  I’ll adopt a kitten.”

They’ve gone a ways, V slowly spinning the vision of his future.  It’s merely a dream, full of impulse and fancy and bereft of any sense.  He doesn’t mention a thing about how he intends to support himself financially or how he’ll have nothing but himself and his books to keep him company. 

Between one block of the neighborhood and the next, Nero has gone from not even looking where he’s going (too busy looking at V) to staring out at the horizon line. 

“I’ll need help getting it all together,” V says, which has Nero returning to this place where they’re walking side by side, rather than lingering long at V’s cottage in a coastal village.  “If you’re not too desperately needed on your demon-hunting, I could use your assistance.”  He meets Nero’s eyes and gives him a little grin.  “Also, you make a rather stunning breakfast spread; you must teach me what you know.”

“Oh, I ‘must?’” Nero asks, smirking back.

“I’d be quite cross with myself if I left your company without knowing how so I can replicate it myself.”

“Well, now….  Can’t have that, can we?”

“I certainly can’t,” V agrees.

Nero chuckles under his breath, rolling his shoulders back a few times before he returns his hands to the pockets of his jacket. 

“Well, guess I got my work cut out for me,” Nero says. 

V smiles to himself, the warmth of satisfaction brimming beneath his ribs. 

“Better get yourself in a good way before you get that cat, though,” Nero advises.  “Take care of yourself before you think about taking care of somebody else.”

“Mmmh,” V agrees.  Sound advice, he thinks, even coming from someone who isn’t practicing what he preaches.  Though that’s a balance that can be easily restored.

V tightens his grip on the handle of his cane and thinks of the ring of ink around his wrist.  His tattoos, before, were the manifestation of the contracts with his demon familiars.  It stands to reason that through happenstance, Nero channeled a bit of his demonic power into V’s body.  It explains why he’s had such a marked improvement in his condition today. 

What matters is that he’s stronger now, enough to focus outside of himself.  And so he shall. 

“Hey, yeah, there’s a bookstore around over here,” Nero suddenly says, jogging a few steps around the next corner and then stopping to turn back.  “If you wanted to learn all that stuff, we should see if they got any books on it.”  He’s smiling.  Carefree and easily without the red-eyed dregs of a hangover or the shadow of his sword looming at his back. 

Nero deserves to be so selfishly happy, V thinks.  V wants to think he deserves it for himself, too.  The thought sits uncomfortably (he doesn’t deserve it, he’s responsible for too much anguish, merely by proxy) but he still yearns for it, daydreaming of stillness and simplicity in a home that doesn’t yet exist.  But it could.  And if he took it upon himself to prioritize Nero’s happiness alongside his own then the reward would be better deserved.  

“You do realize if you take me to a bookstore, I’m not liable to leave for hours,” V advises as he catches up to Nero waiting for him.  And Nero just shrugs.

“I don’t got anywhere else to be,” Nero says.  “I’ll find something to keep me busy.  We’ll stay long as you want, go back whenever.”

“You don’t have to linger just for my sake,” V says. 

“Hey, if I’m bored, I’ll take a nap, it’s no big deal, come on.”

It’s all so simple.  Blissfully uncomplicated and full of impulses that are followed because ‘why not’?   V walks alongside Nero and allows himself joy.  There’s no question of whether he deserves it.  He has it.  So he’ll cherish it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, yes, sometimes i put things on [my tumblr.](https://rednaelo.tumblr.com/) pls come say hello if you like gay spardas bc u know i sure as heck do. oh also I extended the chapter count from 5 to 7 but tbh it'll probably be even more than that.


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Hurricane, everyone. My global warming gift to you is homoeroticism. 
> 
> -Bec

The bookstore is one of those old-heritage joints, built into the bottom floor of a stone-sided building that looks like it should be an art museum or something.  The sign that swings over the door says ‘Est. 1797’ and Nero believes it.  Even if the storefront’s been refurbished with all glass displays and concrete, when he opens the door, the whole place smells like old architecture and books.  That grainy-soft paper-and-ink smell with dust and some constant accompaniment of coffee.  Though the coffee scent is probably from Nero, more likely.

He leaves his loot right at the entrance and the bell over the door rings again when it closes behind him.  It’s cold.  And the sundown shadows have reached through the windows and darkened everything even though there’s still a bit of daylight out.  Nero’s breath fogs in front of him as he peeks around the bookcases, looking for V. 

Like a bad habit, he finds him on the staircase.  Halfway up and settled comfortably on the steps with books piled up all around him, buried in the pages of the one on his lap, pale skin and silver hair illuminated by a tiny booklight that he must’ve picked up from some checkout-line display.  Nero grins.

He has to shift three of the book towers to get to him but he manages to sit a few steps down from V on the staircase without knocking any of the piles over. 

“Sun’s gone down,” Nero tells him.

“I did warn you,” V says, not looking up from the book – no, _books_ , he’s got one open over half of another.   The shadows are even deeper on these stairs, away from the windows, sharp from the LED cast of the booklight. 

“You didn’t even know I left,” Nero says with a smirk.  That gets V to lift his head, frowning somewhere between unamused and disappointed.  “Wasn’t far,” Nero assures him.  “Just across the street looting out that café.  Got you a French press.”

“…How generous,” V says, very diplomatic in response to Nero’s bullshit.  Nero grins at him. 

“I’m just fuckin’ with you,” he says and V smiles and rolls his eyes all the way back to his book again.  “Unless you really do want a French press, because I did get one.”

“What ever for?” V asks, sweeping his fingers over the pages to turn to a new place. 

The café had already been cleaned out at the register and the perishables were all rotted and useless.  But Nero scored a couple bulk bags of coffee beans and one of those nitro-charged whipped cream canisters with like five boxes of the chargers.  And the French press. 

“Why the fuck not?” Nero shrugs.  “You, uh….  You figure out which of these you want?”  He gestures to the fortress of books that V has constructed around himself. 

“Oh, I want all of them,” V says simply. “And these are just from the second floor.  I didn’t take as much time with the first and there’s a third floor that I haven’t even been to.”

“Not like this place is going anywhere,” Nero says.  “We’ll come back.”

“I would hope so.”  V closes the books and places them in his lap before he brandishes the booklight towards one of his towers, checking the spines. 

He’s moving around a hell of a lot easier today.  Got up and down the stairs on his own and hasn’t once looked like he was one rattling exhale away from kicking the bucket.  That fever-pink flush to his cheeks seems to have cooled off from last night, too.  And he hasn’t been just kinda…staring sleepily at the walls like it took all of his focus just to stay conscious.  

Probably helped that he showered.  Not that Nero cared.  He went without running water for months on fucking end; he’s a bit past being bothered by three days of built-up grunge.  V cleaned up real nice, though.  He looks real good when he’s feeling more himself, Nero guesses. Composed.  Elegant.

Nero decides that he’s been spending too much time just staring at V.  It’s a holdover from the hallucinations, he reasons with himself and refuses to stop staring.  The moment he looks away….

V has the sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows, his coat hung loose around his shoulders in that familiar way of his.  When V carefully places the books in his lap onto a nearby tower, Nero catches sight of V’s wrist.

“Whoa,” he says, reaching without thinking. He slips his fingers between V’s thumb and his palm, pulling his hand closer to see.  “The hell….”

In a trick of the shadows, the mark registered as a bruise.  One of those really nasty ones – a burst blood vessel bleeding wide and black under the skin.  And it had Nero’s guts swooping down clear to his knees because _fuck_ , it looks awful.

But now that he’s looking, there’s no way that’s it. The mark is patterned.  Black and blue, sure, but not like a bruise.  He turns V’s wrist in his hands and watches it shimmer in hues of navy when it catches the light. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” is what V says and Nero gives an incredulous laugh.

“You sure?” he says, disbelieving.  Because….  “I did this, huh?  This morning.”

“At least in part,” V says, “if my understanding is correct.”  His fingers curl carefully around Nero’s mechanical digits.  “Tell me what you know about demon contracts, Nero.”

Fuck, is _that_ it?  Nero takes a deep breath and stares at the lines curling around V’s wrist.  And there it is, looking close, he sees the scars in a subtle gradient between ink and porcelain skin.  Shit.

“Pretty much nothing,” Nero says.  He wants to laugh.  After hallucinating and dreaming of V for months on end….  Now he’s here for less than a week and somehow – without even intending – Nero’s entered into some sort of demonic contract with him.  “How bad did I fuck things up?” 

Like, V doesn’t _seem_ like he’s mad about it but the guy’s in another language sometimes.  And this seems like it might be a big fucking deal.  Nero looks up at V and hopes that he’ll keep his superhuman intelligence to a minimum and not just pull the shame right out of Nero’s snarled and panicking headspace.  He could do it.  V looks at Nero and looks _into_ him; he did it last night and maybe Nero was too drunk to feel anything but fascinated but right now he’s a little fucked.

“Quite the contrary,” V says.  He touches the mark on his wrist himself, fingers brushing against Nero’s.  “I’m rather positive that I’m in such a better state today because of this.  Because you gave some of your strength to me.” 

“Oh.”  That’s….  That’s actually great and not terrible? Somehow?  “Huh.” 

Maybe it’s the weird lighting here in the dark but the dark blue metal of his Devil Breaker and the ink of V’s tattoo….  They’re not the same shade but it’s like they’re fraternal twins to one another.  

“So, for that, thank you,” V says. 

“Sure,” Nero says. Though he didn’t even do anything.  Not on purpose, not to help. “Wait, so, like….  If getting just that little cuff did this much, we could do better, yeah?”

“We could,” V allows, a lopsided smile at the corner of his mouth.  “It wouldn’t be worth the expenditure, however.”

“What, you worried you’re gonna handicap me or something?” Nero laughs.  “Fat chance.”

“I don’t have any doubt in your abilities, no matter what disadvantage you may be at, Nero,” V tells him.   “You don’t know what a contract between us would do.  Truth be told, _I_ don’t fully grasp what the consequences might be.  And I’m rather loathe to continue down this path without understanding what’s at stake.”

Ever the thinker, the planner, the schemer…. 

“But it’s making you better,” he says, turning towards V more fully with his knees on the stairs, checking to make sure he doesn’t knock over any of the books.  “Contract’s an agreement.  I give you my power, you get better.  What’s there to lose?”

“Independence,” V says.  “Autonomy.  A life without reliance on one another.”

“We’re already living that life,” Nero says as he leans in, looking fearlessly into V’s eyes now.  He’s _right_ , he knows he is.  “And it’s gonna be like this for however the fuck long we stay here.  Like I said, I don’t see anything to lose.”

V sighs so deeply.  His hand runs through the moonlight-colored curtain of his hair and Nero curls his hands into fists, waiting.

“This isn’t the sort of decision you make lightly,” V says.

“Who the hell said I’m making it lightly?” Nero says right back.  “Just cuz I didn’t think about it for hours first?  Look, I trust my instincts.”

“Which has put you in some rather precarious situations,” V counters.

“And I deal with the consequences when they come up,” Nero agrees.  “I’m not saying every choice I make is perfect but I’m not a fuckin’ idiot.  Unless you’re about to tell me that doing this is gonna seriously incapacitate either of us then I don’t see why we can’t just give it a shot and deal with whatever happens.”

The quiet sticks for a while.  Nero watches V. He’s got this growing feeling that there’s something he doesn’t know about.  Something that really will make him look like a fucking idiot, contrary to his claim.  But the silence remains; Nero’s shoulders steadily relax while V’s eyes skim through the gray-violet shadows of oncoming night.

“I’m just so certain that it’s too good to be true,” V murmurs eventually.  Nero frowns.  “It’s persistent, this vision I have.  In a sudden reversal, the universe decides I was always unworthy.  I lose this.  I lose everything.” Nero looks down V’s hands, where his arms are folded protectively over his stomach.  “The sensible side of me tries to insist I’m being paranoid.  What are the odds, honestly?”

“No clue,” Nero says.

“I don’t know either,” V says.  “I’m so weary, Nero.”  V curls forward a little, his words fall muffled down towards his knees rather than float on the cold, dark air.  “I dream of a better tomorrow but I feel like trying to outsmart my meager lot in life isn’t as much a miracle as it is a gamble, and a poor one at that.  Do you see what I mean?”

“Sure,” Nero says, slowly shifting to settle on the steps again.  It’s hard to make himself sustain the bravado when V is all hunched over like that.  “You’re thinkin’ you stand to lose more than you could gain.”

“I return to this world for a second chance but I’m not supposed to be here at all, Nero, and I never was.”  Pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders, V shakes his head and sighs again.  “I exist but it's cost me terribly.  I can't stand or walk or even breathe without pain.  What if this is the payment for daring to live again?  What if trying to cheat my way out of suffering, I forfeit my right to exist?”

“But you don’t know that,” Nero argues, ducking down to meet eyes dark and pensive with doubt.  It only makes Nero’s conviction flare brighter inside of him.  “You don’t know that for sure,” he insists.  “You don’t know how you got here.  You just showed up.  You wanted to come back, you said so.  You said ‘cuz you wanted it, you returned, but we don’t know anything about how it happened.  Could be a contract with me or whatever just sets it in stone and makes it so you couldn’t ever go back because now I’m tying you here.  Couldn’t something like that be just as possible?”

Nero is hoping like hell that it could be, that it _is_.

When V reaches for him, Nero doesn’t move the slightest inch, eyes locked on V’s, waiting for him to give in because Nero sure as fuck won’t.  Not on this.  Not on the chance that he could help V live his life rather than sit back and watch him suffer through it. 

V’s hand closes around Nero’s wrist – his flesh and blood – and the tips of his fingers find Nero’s pulse, like he’s looking for truth in his heartbeat.  He sees into Nero.  He _has_ to know; there’s no way V doesn’t get it….

“It’s worth it, it’s worth the risk,” Nero insists, railing against the storm of doubt in V’s eyes.  Back and forth, V’s thumb strokes along Nero’s heartbeat.  “C’mon, just tell me what to do, V, I’ll do it, I’ll fucking outshine all your expectations.”

V smiles.   Small and sad at first but then there’s lighting deep in his eyes.

“I know you will,” he says while Nero’s pulse hammers hard against V’s fingertips. 

“Yeah?” Nero tests. 

“Give me your hands.”

V guides Nero until his hands are cupped around either side of V’s jaw and Nero’s kneeling there, staring up at him and incredibly aware of V’s pulse in the palm of his left hand. 

“Are you comfortable?” V asks Nero, looking down through long, dark lashes.  His smile is all secretive and gently inviting to Nero’s curiosity. 

“Are _you?_ ” Nero asks back.  “I could snap your neck like this….”  V just grins.  He laughs.  He’s seen Nero tear carnage through demons and doesn’t believe for a second that Nero could hurt him, could _want_ to hurt him. 

“Your hand is surprisingly warm,” is all V has to say about that, tapping the back of the Devil Breaker with drumming fingertips. 

“’s got a temperature regulator,” Nero mutters, shifting to support himself a little more stably on the stairs now that he’s leaning into V’s space. 

“It’s rather nice.”  V reaches to the collar of his sweater and tugs it down, baring his neck all the way down to his collarbones.  Nero swallows.  Even in this godawful lighting, he can trace the lines left behind on V’s skin – the sketched scars of his tattoos.  “Here,” V coaxes, tilting his chin up, “Put your hands here.”

“Like this?” Nero asks – whispers – sliding his palms down the column of V’s throat until his fingers touch each other at the back of V’s neck. 

“Lower than that,” V tells him, “Wrap your thumbs over the front of my throat.”

This way, it’s more like Nero’s readying to choke him, his hands spread over the base of V’s neck, fingers fanned out against his clavicles. 

“So warm,” V murmurs.  His eyelashes rest softly against his cheeks, his smile gentled and relaxed. Nero’s stomach wads up on itself and his breath feels like it wants to burst him from the inside out. 

“Now what,” he asks because they have to do _something_. He can’t kneel here forever with his hands around V’s neck, looking up at V smiling and wearing that black sweater pulled down to reveal his pale, scarred skin, listening to him sigh from the warmth of Nero’s hands.  There was a point to this, right?  There was a reason V asked him to do this.  What was it?

Nero’s head is useless and empty.

“I just need you to breathe,” V says slowly, opening his eyes just a bit to gaze down into Nero’s face.  “Long, deep breaths, Nero.”

“Sure.”  He says but his heart needs more than a leisurely little sip of oxygen at the moment.  In the stark shadows and silence, V has shifted his position on the stairs, making a bit of room between his feet, and Nero’s climbing into it, one knee shifting forward to get himself closer.  V watches him.  Unblinking and intent, with his eyes dark and his smile some bewitching mix of clever and heavenly. Nero swallows again and bites his own tongue to keep it from swiping out over his lips. His heart jumps when V looks at his mouth.

“Deep breaths,” V reminds him.  His voice is a low, gentle hum against Nero’s hands.  “Counts of seven.”

Nero counts.  In his own head instead of out loud because if he speaks, he’ll fuck up the whole breathing thing and he’s already fucking it up.

“Why?” he hears himself asking V’s lips. Because he can’t stop fucking it up, apparently.

“It’s to help you focus.”

“I am focused,” Nero says.

“I see that.”

V releases his grip on his turtleneck and the fabric clings Nero’s skin now, his fingers snug softly between cotton and marred skin. 

“Don’t take your eyes off of me,” V tells Nero and his cold fingers slide along the sides of Nero’s neck, making him jolt and shiver.  The space between them is narrow and warming, the fog of their breath fading to invisibility.  “I’ve felt so much better today,” V murmurs.  His eyes close – Nero wonders how soft his eyelashes would be if he ran one careful fingertip… – and then their foreheads are bumping together.  “Thank you for what you’ve given me.”

Nero swallows but doesn’t back away, tilting his head just a bit so V knows he can settle in if that’s what he needs. 

“’s not like I even did it on purpose,” Nero mumbles.

“ _Thank you_ ,” V repeats.  His fingers weave together behind Nero’s neck.   

“Sure,” Nero sighs instead of fighting.  He burns hot and always has, but the Devil in him is a fire much fiercer.  Inside him, it’s blazing like a vein of coal with no hope of ever snuffing out.

“I’d like, very much,” V whispers, his breath tickling against Nero’s lips, “if you would please give me more.”

“I will,” Nero promises and his fingers twitch against V’s skin, wanting to hold tighter.  “Whatever you need, you can have it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, shit, it’s fine with me,” Nero says.  “How do I—?”

“Just like this, Nero,” V tells him.  Nero goes a little cross-eyed trying to catch V’s gaze when he opens his eyes again.  God, his eyes are this unreal shade of green.  Deep and dark and even in the shadows, Nero can trace the topography of his iris, patterned like the petals of flowers and plumes of smoke.  Green like the earth, growing lush and verdant, secretly inside of him.  Eden….  “If I need to, can I ask for your strength any time I want?” V asks.  His thumbs rub up against Nero’s hairline behind his ears. 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Nero agrees. 

“And if you’re not there when I need you?”

“Fuck, I mean, I’ll get to you as soon as I can if it’s an emergency.”

“That means a lot to me, Nero, thank you.”

“It’s fi—seriously, what’s with all this?”

“Mmh,” V hums and Nero feels it from his fingertips to the ringing in his ribs.  “Suppose it might not be as obvious to you.  You don’t feel anything?”

“What am I supposed to be feeling?” Nero asks and he shifts; their foreheads rub together, his nose bumps against V’s.  He’s sweating through his hoodie and this jacket, Nero feels _that_.  And V’s steadily warming fingers against his skin.  He feels the tickle of those shining wisps of hair against Nero’s cheek.  He feels his heart roaring like a furnace inside him.

“Not sure,” V confesses. “I feel you.  I feel you burning through me,” V whispers to him, nuzzling against Nero’s cheek. 

That has Nero’s whole body seizing up in a sudden caught breath.  

He can’t speak for a moment, though there’s words right behind his teeth, right under his tongue. 

But—

There…. It catches his periphery: just a bit of movement, but it’s enough.  Nero tears his eyes away from V’s face and stares at his arms instead, at the ink slowly bleeding up from his wrists. 

“Oh, shit,” Nero gasps, entranced as the lines fill back up again.  The desperate restlessness inside of him is euphoria now.  He peels his forehead away from V’s and V leans back, exposing the long loveliness of his neck.  Nero gets the perfect view of the swirling black as it strokes along V’s collarbones.  His fingers stroke the lines that darken V’s neck and he stares as V’s hair blackens like an ink spill.   

Nero sits back on his heels, mesmerized, his hands lingering against V’s chest. 

“There,” V says gently, smiling down at Nero.    

Didn’t even take three minutes.

Nero’s still in the middle of trying to figure out what exactly he did – cataloguing the familiar shapes across V’s arms, _wow_ , they’re all there… – when V just glides to his feet and cat-steps around Nero and the stacks of books flanking him.  He’s halfway down the staircase by the time Nero’s brain clicks into gear again and he shoots to his feet, grabbing the coat that V just abandoned on the steps.

“Whoa, hey, wait up,” Nero calls, but V’s already pulled the front door open and stepped out into the street.

Nero catches himself in the doorway, clutching V’s coat against his chest, and just watches on as V wanders out onto the asphalt.  It isn’t until he’s in the very middle of the road that he stops, his arms spread low at his sides.  Nero catches his breath – doesn’t spare a thought for why he’s breathing hard to begin with – and over his head, the store bell rings whimsically, the tiny chime echoing through the street. 

It’s like the sound of the stars, Nero thinks, absently.

“I wasn’t sure,” V is saying.  Nero can’t see his face from here but V’s words rise in a thick billow of vapor, fading into the sky. 

“Didn’t think it’d work?” Nero asks.  He doesn’t have to even raise his voice: it carries through this empty street on just a panting breath and a murmur. 

“I knew it wouldn’t be the same,” V says.  He turns until Nero can see his face, turned up towards the night sky in profile and lit only by the Milky Way spread out over them.  “And it’s not, not at all, but I’m finding….  I’m finding….”  A smile stretches its way across V’s face and he closes his eyes for just a moment.  “It’s so incredibly different with you,” he says.  Nero abandons the doorway, lured from it. 

“Different, like…good-different?” he asks, and when he reaches V he throws the coat around his shoulders and tugs it in place.  The space between his eyebrows is pinched so tightly and Nero’s heart is unhinged in his chest. 

V’s like this walking artwork with all his ink back, but before that he was still the most magnificent blank canvas.  His eyes track Nero’s face and he’s standing there, smiling while Nero frets and runs a list of reasons why V is fine and Nero _hasn’t_ fucked this whole thing up.

Without the cane, V stood on his feet and practically flew down those stairs, right out here into the ice-toothed night, just so he could look up at the stars and….  Escape?

Nero’s hands grip more than a little desperately at the hems of V’s coat while he looks into his eyes and tries to find the evidence that’ll maybe prove him wrong. 

“It’s simply different,” V says.  But he’s smiling.  He’s _still_ smiling.  He was smiling the whole time.  There wasn’t a moment back there on those steps that he’d flinched in pain or cried out with some sudden agony.  Nero hasn’t hurt him, he _hasn’t_.  He’s telling himself this over and over but it’s refusing to stick to his hammering heart.   

“You’re killing me, V,” Nero groans and drops his chin to his chest with a desperate laugh. 

“Look at me, Nero,” V tells him and Nero tilts his head to meet his eyes.  “You know what I want to do right now, more than anything?”

“What’s that?” Nero asks, biting at the inside of his cheek when V puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. 

“I want to go home and eat,” V says, quite soberly, “Because I’m ravenous.”

“What?” Nero laughs again.

“I’m quite serious,” V tells him.  “You made my appetite flare up like a damned beast and I’m afraid I’m going to have to demand that you feed me immediately.”

“You have to _demand_ me, huh?” Nero’s pretty sure his smile is about to split his cheeks.

“Oh, wait, I need my books first.”  And then V is striding his way back to the bookstore and Nero’s left in the middle of the street, blinking and bewildered in his wake.  He hasn’t seen V move like that ever in his life.

The next breath comes a little easier, fogging out in front of Nero, dispelling the dregs of fear that had been lingering.  The bell jingles again when V returns to the door and pulls it open. 

“Help me with these?” he asks Nero. 

“You kidding? I’m not hauling all of those fuckin’ books home tonight, you literary fetishist,” Nero says, jogging over to the storefront in a few quick steps.

“And I wasn’t expecting you to, you unruly brat,” V returns.  His eyes are all narrowed and unamused but Nero sees it, the little flicker of a smile across his lips. “Just the few, if you please.”

Nero carries eight books and V takes six and walks a step and a half in front of Nero with his cane tucked into the crook of his elbow.  It never touches the ground once.

“This is fuckin’ nuts,” Nero informs V.  He wants to like…laugh about it.  Laugh at his life and the past and future and literally everything that he thought made sense.  Where’s God? Nero wants to laugh in his face.

“I thought you’d be more pleased with yourself,” V remarks, a sly smile turned over his shoulder.  “You did this, you know.”

“Yeah, you say that, but I don’t even know what the fuck I did,” Nero says.

“Through the catalyst we unintentionally created this morning, you siphoned off a share of your demonic power and passed it to me.”

“Simple as that.”

“Indeed.”

“That’s it, that’s literally it, it’s just you pulling the strings of a happy accident and now you’re all better now.”

V chuckles.  Nero takes a few strides until they’re side by side again.  From here, the glimmer of the porch light – the only lamp lit on the entire grid – is already in sight.  The journey home is so much faster.

“I couldn’t have this without you, Nero,” V says.  “So, thank you.”

He was saying that back there, too, on the stairs.  Thanking Nero over and over again, the words warm and humming soft through Nero’s hands. 

But it wasn’t like it was a challenge.  There wasn’t a fight to win or a sacrifice to make or some problem that Nero had to solve. It was just him kneeling on the stairs with his hands full of V’s body and his head full of V’s words and his heart full of impulse, impulse, sudden impulses to grip tighter.  To pull.  To take and possess and _giving_ V anything was the last thing he was thinking about. 

“You’re welcome,” Nero mutters lamely, a little late in the conversation.  He’s gotta stop thinking.  He’s walking in circles around his own idiocy and it’s not helping.

Nero still manages to beat V up the front steps and pushes the door open with his foot after he turns the handle.  The books go on the coffee table; Nero goes straight to the kitchen to get to work on dinner since it seems like he’s got a stronger appetite to feed, now.

“Any requests, your highness?” he calls over his shoulder. 

“Something delicious,” V says.  Nero snorts. 

Alright, well, that’s doable, at least.

The house is quiet while Nero cooks and V sits there on the couch, reading.  Every now and then, Nero lifts his eyes and checks but each time, V’s hair is still black.  He’s got one shoulder tucked against the corner of the couch, legs stretched out in front of him and ankles crossed as he reads.  Bare feet.  Nero takes a deep breath and focuses on making stroganoff.

Pretty soon, there’s only the pasta left to cook and Nero lets it do its thing while he runs upstairs for a shower.  The water steams blissfully hot and Nero lets it beat away the uncertainty that was tightening his shoulders, tensing his back.  He pulls in slow breaths, stretching his chest wide and filling his lungs until they ache.  When he releases that breath, he pushes all the stupid fears out, the ones that have been growing in him like mold. 

Red Grave’s had him festering for months, waiting, worrying, looking at the horizon lines and thinking of them as boundaries.  God, fuck all of that.  Hasn’t even been a whole week since V stumbled out of his fever-dreams and into reality.  He went from falling apart at the seams to being better than ever and Nero can’t look at that and just let himself rot. 

He dries off and redresses, comfortably and warmly, and goes back downstairs to get the noodles drained.

V is standing at the counter, deftly peeling zest off of a lemon.  The bottle of X.O Nero had last night….  He’s got that and like four other bottles in front of him.  A glass of ice full of a distinctly amber liquid and a cocktail spoon. He smiles at Nero when Nero walks over towards the stove, peeking at the labels as he passes.

“Whacha makin’?” Nero asks, tossing the colander into the sink.

“I found the recipe for it and decided to give it a try,” V explains, and nods at the open book on the counter next to his hip.  “It’s called a Viuex Carré.”  His accent is annoyingly charming, foreign words light and playful, floating out his mouth like it’s his native tongue.

“Sounds pretentious and French,” Nero says.  

“Creole, actually.”

“Uh-huh. You got a cocktail book?”

“You were the one who carried it home for me,” V says.  Nero dumps the egg noodles into the strainer and when he looks up, V’s standing there next to him with the drink in his hand.  “Try it?  Please, I’m curious to know what you think.”

“You put Henny in this?” Nero asks, and takes the glass from V’s outstretched hand. 

“The...the cognac?” V blinks and Nero almost snorts into the glass, watching the guy interpret, brow furrowed, frowning gently. “Yes, I helped myself to it.  I hope you don’t mind.”

Nero licks his lips to get the burst of lemon oil and brown liquor off his mouth and swallows it down, grinning. 

“Nah, this is great,” he says.  “This glass for me?”

“As thanks for dinner,” V says with a nod.

“Well, shit, hope I’m living up to the expectations,” Nero huffs a laugh.  “C’mon, let’s feed that beast in you.”

V eats two bowls on his own and Nero alternates bites with his glass of sweet-and-bitter French drink (which is actually really fuckin’ nice and V even makes him another one after dinner because he likes it so much).

They sit side by side on the couch and V opens _another_ book while Nero shoves his cold feet into the seam of the couch cushions.

“And what’s that one?” Nero asks as V turns to the first page.

“A novel I’ve been wanting to pick up for some time, now,” V says and tilts the book so Nero can see the cover. 

“ _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ ,” Nero reads.  “Heard of that one.”

“Have you?” V asks while Nero slurps on his drink.  “Would you like to enjoy it with me?  I’ll read it aloud, if you like.”

Nero snorts.  Is this some bizarre karmic affirmation or something?  No one’s read to him in his entire life and then there’s V, putting drinks in his hand and offering to read him a story before bed.  It’s weird as hell but V’s sitting there with his dark-again hair and his hands all inked up, cradling this book he’s been wanting to read for however long, offering to share it with Nero.  It’s been a strange and wonderful day and this isn’t a typical celebration – just the two of them with simplistic, filling food and amateur-but-tasty cocktails – but V’s inviting him for more and Nero wants.  Whatever V will give him, he wants.

“Sure,” Nero says, leaning back against the throw pillows.  “Go for it.”

“Certainly,” V says.  Nero closes his eyes and holds his glass against his stomach and can hear the smile in V’s voice when he says, “‘The artist is the creator of beautiful things.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey check out [my tumblr](https://rednaelo.tumblr.com/) if ur gay. leave me a squid くコ:彡 in the comments. you know, like for whatever. can't leave kudos? can't think of a comment? like squid? me too.  
> ily


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you waited so long and i'm so grateful for that. thank you for waiting, i hope you love this because i labored over it long in the hopes that you would love it. 
> 
> also in case it wasn't completely clear for anyone, i'm taking the 'canon is my bitch' stance with this fic which means i'll discard entire swaths of it at my discretion. which i have. not sorry.
> 
> love u
> 
> -Bec

Before he elbows the door handle and slips outside, V spikes Nero’s mug with a finger of bourbon. There’s an hour yet of setting sunlight and it has cast Nero in rosy red while he dismantles his gun in weighted clicks and slides of steel.  In his right hand is a scrap of an oil-stained t-shirt and in his left, a disembodied revolver cylinder; between his teeth, he holds a tiny detail brush.

“Here,” V offers, bringing the mug into careful periphery.  “Boozy hot cocoa.”

“Oh, shit,” Nero lisps and spits out the brush into his lap.  “Uh, hang on.”  And V waits, smiling behind a sip of his own while Nero sorts himself to vacant hands.  “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm.”  V settles next to him, near as he can be in spite of the impressive assortment of implements that are placed in the circle of Nero’s reach. 

“I was wondering what was taking you so long,” Nero says (after a judicious sniff of his mug and a small taste).  “Thought you couldn’t find clean socks or something but, nope, you’re in there making magic happen.”

“Hardly,” V scoffs.  “It’s easier to stay warm with a hot drink.  I wanted to enjoy the evening, not suffer through it.”

“Yours spiked, too?” Nero asks and leans over like he’s about to stick his nose in V’s mug and assess for himself.

“Not tonight, no,” V says and nudges Nero back with a knuckle against his forehead.

“Heheh.”

“Best not tempt fate by indulging too much, too quickly.”

“Yeah, enjoy that while you can,” Neo says, “Cuz first chance I get, I’m getting you smashed off your ass. I bet you’re hilarious drunk.”

V stifles his laugh behind a smile of pressed lips. 

“I think, comparatively, what with your daredevil antics, you’re probably the more entertaining of the two of us.”

“So what I’m hearing is you wanna do a drinking competition with me.”

“Is that what I said?”

“Loud and clear,” Nero affirms and gives a noisy sigh of satisfaction after he takes a sip.  “You’re on, by the way.  You’re going down.”

V laughs under his breath and when he turns to look at Nero, he finds him grinning, sly and impudent.  Charming. 

This is exactly what’s been winding its fingers around V’s focus all day, tugging when he turns his head and dragging along behind him with every unfettered step he takes. 

It’s the deep, even breaths he can take in each moment and the lack of soreness in his ribs.  It’s how his legs don’t wobble when he stands at the stove longer than two minutes.  It’s how he’s out here in the oncoming winter and doesn’t feel like he has to shrivel into himself to keep warm, the drink and his sweater and coat are enough.  It’s that Nero gave him all of this. 

Every good thing brings V back to Nero and his troublemaker smile (bravery over a weary heart) and his busy hands (that held V like he was worth holding gently) and his unflinching insistence that V live and live well.  V sipped these thoughts down with his coffee this morning, turned them over in the pages of his books, scrubbed them against his ink-darkened hands and stood over the sink, staring down as they stretched over his fingers and the vulnerable places where his veins tap patiently against his skin. 

 _What now?_ he thinks again, always the question chasing him down after these standstill moments of knowing and not knowing simultaneously. 

 _Now…_ , V tries to answer and trails off in his own heart.  _Now….  Now you must know that whatever your instinct pulls you towards is precisely what you must avoid_.

Sound advice. He can’t trust himself, unburdened.  Given the opportunity, he’ll pick up older, crueler books and find a weapon to fill his hands; he’ll turn into what he’s always been until now.  It’s utterly unacceptable. 

V knows what his instinct is when he thinks of Nero and his warm hands around V’s neck and his face turned up, pupils blown wide and wondering in the dark.  It aches almost as terribly as the pain he’s only just been freed from.

He keeps it to himself, wrapped sacredly in layers of promises that won’t leave his lips but he swears to nonetheless.   And it will be alright, he assures himself, to never say.  It will be best if he doesn’t covet beyond a modest margin.  He can find delight there.  He will.

The cocoa is cooling in V’s hands and he frowns down at it in a sigh before taking another drink. 

“You should come with us tomorrow,” Nero says.  “Get out of the house more, get you a piece of mayhem so you can come home and be glad it’s over with at the end of the day like me.”

“Misery loves company,” V says with an eyebrow raised.

“And I’m fuckin’ miserable,” Nero agrees.

“Poor darling,” V commiserates, reaching out and ruffling the short-cropped hair at the back of Nero’s head. He can allow himself that, surely, something so harmless….

Nero leans into V until their shoulders bump and V has to overcorrect a bit to make sure his drink doesn’t slosh all over his fingers.

“You know it’s a good idea.”

“And absolutely not just a clever ruse to then sidetrack us to that nightclub and coerce me into a drinking contest, I’m sure,” V says.

“God _damn,_ how do you do that?” Nero demands and V lets the laughter burst from him as he curls over his knees.  “You’re a fucking mind reader and it’s the most bullshit thing in the world, it’s complete bullshit.”

“How bullshit is it, Nero?” V asks between his laughs.

“Absolute fucking bullshit, V, and you gotta cut it the hell out,” Nero tells him.

“My sincerest apologies,” V says, entirely insincere, “I’ll be sure to keep my clairvoyance to a minimum.”

“You better.”

“I do like the idea, going out tomorrow,” V says.  “Thinly veiled ploy it was, your suggestion, there’s still appeal there.”

“You can come along whenever,” Nero says. “Nico will probably talk your ear off while I do all the work but, hey, it’s a living.”

“Just like old times.” 

“More or less.” 

V watches while Nero reassembles Blue Rose piece by piece, trading off for sips of cocoa.  Today is warmer than yesterday, but only just; the winds aren’t as restless.  Each exhale still steams and wisps away and V considers that he might like a hat of some sort to keep his ears warmer, next time.  Perhaps he can find some gloves, too. 

Inside is perfectly comfortable but the whole world is cold and quiet just outside the door, here on the steps.  There’s peace here, lingering in this threshold with his choices close on either side of him and Nero nearby.  V is surrounded by all the things he’s wanted (a simple few: a home, a possibility of anything, a precious person and his smile).

“I’m not opposed to the idea of drinking with you,” V tells Nero, which has Nero peering over at him in cautious curiosity; he can hear the caveat and is waiting for V to impart it.  “I’d prefer to do it without the company of strangers.”

Nero nods and slots the cylinder back into its place, the click of it heavy and satisfying. 

“Right,” Nero says.  “So you don’t act like a drunk idiot in front of a bunch of assholes.”

“Well, when you put it like that…,” V says.

“I’m just messin’ with ya.”  Nero grins and cocks back the hammer, holding the gun out with his left hand.  When he pulls the trigger, the hammer clicks forward again.  “Yeah, that’s fine.  Seriously, though, I thought I was gonna have to pull some fantastic bullshit just to convince you to do it, so I’ll take what I can get.”

V’s mug is empty now.  He sets it on the step beside him and folds his arms on top of his knees to pillow his head as he looks sidelong at Nero. 

“You just want to get drunk with me,” he says, testing out the idea instead of asking it like a question.  Because that’s what Nero’s saying he wants, isn’t it?

“Yeah,” Nero says on a laugh.  “It’s fun when you’re with friends.”

There’s warmth and eagerness there in Nero’s bright eyes: anticipation for a joy that’s been lost but may soon be on the horizon.  Nero has missed this particular pastime.  

“I’ve never been drunk with friends,” V admits, lips tickled by the fibers on his sweater as he smiles.

“All the more reason,” Nero says as he tucks Blue Rose away.  “And, hey, great excuse to get that cocktail book and figure out what you like.”

“You make a good point.”  It might be nice to see what Nero’s preferences are, too.  To try them for himself and learn how alike they are in taste.  “You were drinking that night when I returned,” V mentions, remembering the headache-and-nausea throb of the club around him like a terrible, clamoring alarm clock.  “Were you having a good time?”

“Nah,” Nero laughs dismissively.  “No, I was….” His face falls and his brows furrow and a sigh swells up in Nero’s chest before he shoves it out.  His fingers rub at his eyes, over his brow, down his face, agitated. 

“Nero?” V asks, lifting his head. 

“I thought I was going crazy,” Nero says and he laughs again, laughs at himself.  “I just knew it, I was losing my goddamn mind.  But like.  I almost didn’t care.   I didn’t want to care.  Like it’d be nice to stop giving a shit and just accept that I was a fucking head case on a countdown until I was useless.”

V straightens his shoulders and skims through his thoughts for things to say, anything to say, anything to smooth the creases that have emerged on Nero’s face.  There’s often a dimple in his cheek when he smiles but right now a grimace has overtaken its usual place. Nero’s eyes close and V didn’t realize how dark the circles beneath them were until just now.

“But you were there,” Nero says before V can even collect enough words to make an appropriate sentence.  “And I might’ve been out of my goddamn skull but it was just so good to see you.” 

 _I missed you, too,_ V thinks like a yank on his heart; it slams against his sternum.  _Every day without you, I missed you._

The cold and still light of the setting sun across Nero’s face is struck through with sudden lightning.  V flinches.  Nero cusses. 

His wings are out about him like a wide neon halo with claws grasping, reaching towards V.

“Oh,” V says gently. Unthinking, his hands lift and are immediately taken up in those enormous talons.   By the wrists, they wrap around, and V is tugged in closely, carefully, until his legs are bumping up against Nero’s.

“I’m not doing that,” Nero is quick to say, shifting his position so that he doesn’t overwhelm V’s space. “I don’t know— I can’t make them let go.”

“Must be the contract,” V says, thinking of that ichor-blue band around his wrist and the faded longing in his chest. 

“For real?” Nero asks, his shoulders loosening like he’s been prepared to haul himself bodily backwards the moment V expressed the slightest upset.  “So…this is you, then.”

“It’s both of us,” V says and Nero nods, trusting that it’s true.  It most certainly isn’t, though _._  It V’s own howling, unruly heart remembering those moments when he couldn’t conjure Nero’s face, couldn’t form his name in word or thought without it all fading away from him like ash.  Left nothing but a yearning that couldn’t remember who it cried for. Those days are not even a week behind him. And Nero is at V’s side _but it’s not enough_ , something terrible within insists. 

The claws around V’s wrists grip more dearly.

“Hang on,” Nero mutters, and with his own hands, begins to carefully pull and pluck each talon from its grip around V’s wrists.  V watches their digits, pale and blue and steel and tattooed, together in a peculiar bouquet. “You did say there would be consequences,” Nero mutters as he nudges one of the wings back.  It dodges his touch and reaches out to hold V at his elbow.  Nero sighs. 

“I did,” V says, smiling now. 

“You said that and I thought it would be like…blood rituals or maybe we’d have to trade off which days one of us was strong and the other was weak, not like….  Uh.  This.”

“A strength exchange,” V snickers.  “What a romantic fate…never powerful together but eternally sharing a life force.”

“Romantic?” Nero says.  “It’s complete bullshit.  No way to live.”

“And yet, you considered it to be a possibility and went through with the contract anyway.”

“I’d say if all we gotta deal with is my Devil being a little grabby with you, we got off just fine,” Nero says, and pries the claws from V’s other wrist.  As he attempts the first wing for the second time, the other curves around V’s head and flicks its talons through his hair.  V laughs.  Nero’s cheeks go all ruddy in the sunset.  “I’m not doing that,” he reminds V in a grumble.

“I know,” V assures him. 

All claws loosened and free, Nero sits back in a sigh.  His wings fold away and fade and V watches them all the while. 

“Dinner tonight?” he asks.  V plants his hands behind him, left one a little closer to Nero. 

“Have to make that chicken before it goes bad,” Nero mutters as he gathers his gun cleaning supplies.

“I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” V says.

“Oh, it will be.  You’re helping.”

“I am?”

“You got functional legs and aren’t looking like you’re about to fall over half the time,” Nero reasons.  “Last night you got away with it because I didn’t know if the whole contract thing was a fluke but now you’re with me, dinner duty, every night for the rest of forever.”

“That’s…,” V starts and then laughs to himself, “It’s a consequence I can live with,” V says.

“Figured,” Nero says.  As he shifts and rises to his feet, V stands alongside him, collecting both their mugs.  “You said you wanted to learn.” 

“I did,” V agrees and follows Nero into the house, smiling.

 

* * *

 

“So we play spectators as Nero takes center stage,” V says from his place at the open door of the van. 

“Spectate nothin’,” Nico garbles around the cigarette in her mouth.  “I’m the one keepin’ that idiot armed while he shows off for himself.”  V peeks over his shoulder just in time to catch Nico cackle, snorting out a cloud of smoke.  “ _Armed_ ,” she says, “Fuck that’s so stupid, I crack myself up….”

Out in the harbor, Nero makes quick carnage of the hoard bearing down on him.  The battlefield is his dancefloor.  He takes to it with characteristic flourishes and attitude, rhythm kept by the shots from his pistol and the percussive strikes of his sword. 

“You go if you’re so bored,” Nico tells V, nodding in the general direction of Nero and his whooping-hollering bloodshed. There’s a thrill of wanting that suffuses through him, a call that hums deep in his bones.

“I’m woefully unprepared to engage in combat with anything at the moment,” V says.  Violence was always the path of least resistance; V flowed through it, sustained by spite and rage and sadness in the worst of times, cleansed of all of them by the time he sheathed his blade.  He bites gently down on the admittance that he’d love to be there at Nero’s side, cutting down swaths of inferior demons, if only to rid himself of the tension.  “And he has it quite handled,” V adds.

“Yeah but you wanna,” Nico says, shredding through V’s congenial misdirection in an instant and he sighs, vexed.  “Here, lookie what I got cookin’ up,” she calls to him, waving her cigarette through the air while she beckons.  V stands and gives a last lingering moment to Nero and his lethal choreography.

At her workbench, Nico’s scratching at collection of blueprints with a white pencil and V turns his head a bit to try and see clearly her work. 

“Here,” Nico says and spins one of the papers around, pushing it towards V.  “Whacha think.”

She’s sketched out what appears to be a pistol of some sort.

“I think it looks like a perfectly serviceable firearm,” V says, out of his depth.  “They’re not really my area of expertise.  Not sure how far you’ll get with an opinion like mine.”

“I mean for you,” Nico says and taps a smudged finger against the paper.  “You like it? Think you could do some damage with it?”

V lifts his chin and levels her with an even stare.  Says nothing.  Nico just waits there, expectant and smiling.

“I thought you knew me better,” V says.  A little cutting, but Nico’s grin has an edge to match. 

“I know you just fine, pretty boy,” she says.  “I ain’t no sword-forger, a’right?  I’m a gunsmith.  And I gotta personal determination to put one of my weapons in your possession.  So you’re gonna do me the favor.”

V scoffs and looks down at the plans again. 

“So this is for your own benefit,” he says.

“We’re all a bunch of selfish fucks,” Nico says easily.  “You and me and him.  And I’m bored and you don’t have a gun so I wanna make you one.  Quit lookin’ at me like I’m spittin’ on your shoes; just tell me you want it and say thanks.”

V snorts and rolls his eyes. 

“What did I ever do to be stuck with the two of you?” he asks.

She’s lonely in her own way, V considers.  They’re stuck here, the three of them, with only each other to understand, only small joys to keep them afloat.  He thinks of Nero laughing in the midst of his slaughter and Nico standing proudly over her blueprints, demanding that V take what she makes for him.

“What would you do if you weren’t a gunsmith, Nico?” V is suddenly curious to know.  He leans his elbows on the worktop and shuffles through the other sketches strewn about.

“Hell if I know,” Nico says with a shrug.  “Car mechanic, maybe. Engineer. Roller coaster architect.  Nail technician.  Model railroad builder.”

“For not knowing, you certainly seem to have plenty of options available.”

“I’ve done all those things before,” Nico says with a shrug.  “They were alright.  Put food on the table, I guess, or kept me busy.  But I put my legacy here.”  Her painted nails go tap-tap-tap on the worktop and she jerks her thumb over her shoulder.  “No one else makes this shit.  No one can do what I do.  I _love_ this.”

V looks into Nico’s blazing eyes and envies her passion.  She states her love so plainly, shameless and shining with pride.  No fear.  Only security. 

“I don’t quite have a need for a weapon,” V admits, thinking back on his own advice to keep blood off his hands, “but I have been interested in expanding my horizons, learning new things.”

Nico just wags her eyebrows at him, expectant.  V laughs.

“I wouldn’t want a revolver,” he finally says, pushing the first sketch back towards Nico.  “They’re simply too cumbersome.  Something lightweight would be better, less power, more agility.”

“Mmmh!” Nico bends over the sketches and tugs out another one lower in the stack.  “Something stealthy.  Easy to hide.”

“Why not,” V says. 

“And a silencer,” Nico adds.  V narrows his eyes at her, baffled. 

“A silencer….”

“For the element of surprise!” she says.

“What are you guys doing?” Nero asks, sticking his head into the van, panting gently and sheened in sweat.  He brings the scent of silt-and-brine from the bay with him and when he meets V’s eyes, he grins recklessly.  V’s whole body turns towards him like Nero is a fire in the cold dark; he steps in closer and V’s shivering heart thaws and beats heavy.

“Nico has decided that I need a gun,” V tells Nero as he wanders over to the jukebox and fiddles with the tracks until one of his favorites starts to play.  “So I’m suggesting a few specifications.”

“No shit,” Nero says with a grin.  “Didn’t know you could shoot.”

“I absolutely can’t,” V says warmly and the look Nero gives him is as confounded as it is livid.  V turns a laugh into the flat of his palm.

“The hell you makin’ him a gun for if he can’t even use it?” Nero asks Nico.

“How ‘bout you quit mouthin’ off like you’re some damn genius and go teach him, huh?  God, both of you, get out, you’re hoggin’ up all my air.”

“Can’t breathe it anyway with all the damn smoke,” Nero huffs.  “C’mon, V.”  His hand curls around V’s elbow and he moves towards the door, but rather than dragging V out, his grip loosens and simply slides along V’s arm.  Like a question, an unvoiced hope….  V follows before Nero lets go entirely and is treated to the barest squeeze around his wrist.

“She said she wanted to give me a gun,” V explains as he walks with Nero towards the docks. 

“Guess she’s been getting bored with me,” Nero says with a shrug and a grin.  “We’ve been in this place too damn long.  Can’t blame us for getting all excited about you being here, spicing things up.”

It’s cloudy today.  A cold front moves over the harbor and chafes at V’s cheeks as he searches for the sun behind the billows of gray clouds, finding only its filmy yellow silhouette through the wisps.  Colder, too, and V puts himself at a collision trajectory by scant inches, just to bump and jostle against Nero’s side, steal a second of his body heat.  Nero laughs and nudges him back.

“You up for learning how to shoot?” Nero offers. 

“I would like to,” V admits, lips pressed thin while he slides his hands into the pockets of his coat.  “Between the two of you, I should really take advantage of my opportunities.” 

V deliberately didn’t make a place for violence in his life.  Not in that quiet seaside cabin.  Not in the garden that grows where once only dead things were.  V thinks of blood slicking his hands and swallows slowly, wets his lips, takes his next breath deeply.  He could run from what feels like an inborn craving for blade and butchery or he could simply turn down a different path. 

Vergil was never one for firearms. Too crude, lacking in elegance.  All the more reason.

“Couldn’t hurt, could be fun,” Nero encourages and V meets his smile, answering it.

“Let’s see how good a teacher you are,” he challenges and watches the fire alight in Nero’s eyes.

So V finds himself with Blue Rose in his hands, the weight of her measured in more than ounces. He rubs his thumb against the carving under the cylinder.

“You like her?” Nero asks. 

“She’s lovely,” V says, “Heavier than I expected.”

“First guns are always heavier than you think,” Nero agrees.  “Alright so the first rule is you don’t point it at anything that you don’t intend to put a bullet in.” Nero slides up alongside V to point out the line of beer bottles and soda cans that he has set up at the end of the dock.  “Second rule is you don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot.  You got it?”

“Certainly,” V agrees. Nero polished this gun so meticulously last night.  Each of its pieces carefully dismantled and turned in his fingers, cleaned and cared for before being put together again. 

“That one’s double-action,” Nero tells V, gesturing at Blue Rose.  “Which means if you pull the trigger, it’ll cock the hammer and fire it in one go.”

“I see.” 

“So I mean it: Rule One, Rule Two.”

“Don’t point it at anything I don’t intend to shoot,” V recites with a sure nod.  “Don’t put my finger on the trigger unless I intend to shoot.”

“Yeah, you got it,” Nero says and V lifts the gun with both hands to point it down the length of the dock.  “There you go, keep a firm grip.  Don’t lock your elbows, though, you’ll hurt yourself; yeah, let your shoulders relax, that’s it.”

V peers down the sights and tries to hold steady without tensing his muscles but still maintaining his grasp. 

“This is more of a balancing act than I anticipated,” he says with a bit of a laugh.  “You make it look effortless, even one-handed.”

“Yeah, well, I been doin’ this a while,” Nero says, slouching to one side with an easy smile.  “Go on, pull the trigger, let’s see how you do.”

V curls his index finger through the trigger guard and pulls.  It’s loud.  The recoil is enough to make him take a half step back.  At the end of the dock, none of the targets have moved. 

“You clipped one,” Nero says, leaning to squint down the way.

“I did?” V scans the bottles and cans to try and see. 

“Yeah you shot the top off of that green one there in the middle,” Nero says, pointing it out.  “You’re aiming a little high, bring it down a bit, try again.”

V shifts into a more stable position, feet spread apart and both arms extended, holding Blue Rose determinedly.  He takes a moment to refocus (fixated for a moment on how he can feel Nero staring at him, waiting) and puts all his effort towards lining up the next shot. 

Nero would stand more loosely, V thinks.  Relaxed. And V takes a deep breath and lets his shoulders down a few inches, like before.  Nero would wear that cocky smirk and be sure of his shot even if he was just firing blindly, V also thinks, and he can’t help the laugh that pushes out of him, smiling in spite of himself. 

The green bottle in the middle….  V picks it out, deliberately isolating it in his focus, and aims Blue Rose true.  The whole world narrows to his gaze down the sights, all things clearer.  V pulls the trigger.

The bottle bursts and knocks over all the other targets nearby.

“Holy fuck,” Nero whispers.

V smirks in satisfaction. 

“That’s quite gratifying, when you land the shot,” he says to Nero as he lowers Blue Rose once again.

“You were glowing,” Nero says.  V turns to him.

“I was…glowing,” he repeats.

“Yeah, god, you didn’t notice?” Nero laughs and steps in closer, taking up V’s hand.  “Your tattoos, they all lit up bright fuckin blue, like a neon sign. I could see it on your neck, too.  No way, you really didn’t notice it?”

“I was so focused…,” V offers and his fingers flutter lightly against Nero’s palm.

“You glowed,” Nero promises. 

“You’re so excited about it,” V says, stifling a giggle that wants to come out.

“You glowed blue, man, it was weird but you looked super badass so it was cool as fuck!” Nero insists and V’s hand is pulled in all different directions with Nero’s eagerness to speak with his own hands (but he still hasn’t let go). 

“It’s the contract,” V realizes, a gasp buoying the words out of him.

“Again?” Nero asks as V raises the gun again.  One handed this time (his left) and aims at the piling at the end of the dock.  Nero’s fingertips are touching the very center of V’s palm, gently.  V hears him draw in a breath, can feel the displacement of the air, they’re close enough.

There’s a faint brightening at the periphery of V’s gaze, but he sees it plain across the back of his hand.  Channeled blue through every line, as vivid as Nero’s wings. 

V pulls the trigger.  The recoil is worse and V winces a bit as his hand is shoved up and back by the force.  But both bullets hit the piling. And blast the top clean off.

“You see it?” Nero asks eagerly. 

“I saw,” V agrees.  “I felt it.”

“What does it do?”

“Seems to perfect my aim,” V says and turns the grip of the gun towards Nero for him to take since he’s quite sure it’s empty after those three shots.  “Well?  Tell me how I did.”

“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Nero says and holsters Blue Rose, finally relinquishing V’s hand.  “How you feelin’?”

“I’m anticipating my new weapon eagerly,” V says.  “I’m sure it’ll be less likely to twist my arm off at the elbow.”

“Yeah, you got cocky with that last shot,” Nero says with a nod. 

“Must be your influence,” V says and Nero elbows him, sniggering.

“You shoot with one hand when you got the upper body strength to make it happen, you fuckin’ stringbean,” Nero says.

“You’re right,” V says with a put-upon sigh.  Nero’s already eyeing him suspiciously.  He’s learning.  “I suppose I let your compliments get to my head and just wanted to show off.”

“Huh?”

“I believe you said I was super badass and cool as fuck,” V recounts as he turns, making to walk back to the van. “Rather sweet of you to say.  I’m flattered.”

He spares only a brief glance over his shoulder and catches sight of Nero standing there, staring back, flushed pink to his ears and his eyes glinting.   V turns away, resisting the urge to just pivot entirely and go right to his side, catch Nero’s face in his hands and kiss his flushed cheeks, either one, both of them. 

Both of Nero’s wings suddenly flare out, blazing blue against the clouds and V feels his smile widen to the point of an ache in his cheeks.

“What now?” Nero exclaims, looking up around himself in confusion.

“Are we done for the day?” V asks lightly, changing the subject so he doesn’t leave Nero in a purgatory of endearing dismay.  “I recall you had plans for us this evening.”

Ethereal feathers fluff out indignantly and Nero sucks on his teeth, eyebrows flicking up.  His steps are heavy as he approaches, leaving V to lift his chin curiously.  Then Nero crowds in close like he’s some schoolyard bully testing out intimidation tactics (but his smile is just so clever-shy-perfect that V’s heart can only lurch towards it, delighted).

“I’m gonna get you so shitfaced and make you tell me how awesome I am all night,” Nero swears.

“If you say so,” V says gently and twirls from Nero’s imposing lean, hoping to lure him along.  Behind him, the eager flap and flutter of demonic wings snaps through the salt-sticky air; V finds himself full of laughter and only laughs harder when he hears it answered in Nero’s low, lovely chuckles.

 

* * *

 

Nero promptly treks up the stairs to clean up and Nico snags V by the wrist and pulls a bottle of black nail polish out of her pocket with intent in her eyes.

“Whacha think?” she asks.  “I’ll do ‘em for ya.”

So now V has black fingernails and keeps noticing them when he brings his glass up to his lips for another taste of his drink.  Delighted by the whimsy of his impulses and the pleasant addition the dark varnish makes accompanying his tattoos.  Nero keeps looking at his hands.

“Never have I ever kissed a Sparda,” Nico sniggers and V gives a gentle scoff before he takes a drink.  Nero takes one too.

“I fuckin’ knew it!” Nico shrieks in laughter, tipping over on her side, sloshing her whiskey onto the rug. “You assholes keep makin’ moony eyes at one another, it’s no fuckin’ wonder!”

Ah, she’s gotten the wrong idea.

“The hell are you talking about?” Nero yells, his ears are so incredibly red.  V stares at him, mesmerized.  “It was _Dante!_ Not anyone else!”  And Nero’s eyes skate briefly over to V before he turns his glare back on Nico. 

“Uh-huh,” Nico says.

“Same for me,” V says, eyelids heavy as he licks the taste of the mulled wine from his lips. 

“Dante?  Both of you?  Seriously?” Nico asks.  Her forehead is all flushed and her usual perky posture is all slovenly and slumped. 

“You asked,” V says with a tilted smile and drinks again even though he doesn’t have to.

“Aight, well, now you gotta spill or you owe me. And trust me, you don’t wanna owe me.”

“You first,” Nero grumbles at V from across the coffee table, hunching over his half-empty tequila shot like he can drown in it and avoid this conversation entirely.  A laugh drags its way out of V in lazy little bursts of amusement. 

“This was your idea, I would just like to remind you,” he says to Nero.

“Shut up and talk,” Nero slurs against the heel of his hand.

“That would be quite the feat to attempt simultaneously,” V says.  “Ah, well, I was not yet myself when this happened.”

“Ohhh, so this is _Vergil’s_ dirty little secret,” Nico cackles.  The apples of her cheeks are intensely round under the squint of her shining eyes.

“It counts as mine by rule of memory but if you are feeling brave enough to use it as blackmail material, help yourself,” V says.  “Though the details are not as sordid as you might think.”

“Fess up, pretty boy,” Nico goads him. 

“We were teenagers and I was curious to know how he would react,” V says with a shrug.  “I hoped to get a rise out of him.”

“Uh-huh.  And how well’d that turn out?”

“We crossed swords immediately afterwards so it went about that well.”

“Crossed swords, huh,” Nico says with a wide and lazy grin.  Nero is spluttering and scoffing and restlessly picking up and putting down his shotglass before he finally decides to refill it.

“Not like that,” V says to Nico with a slow smirk and a shake of his head.  She clicks her tongue.

“Now _that_ woulda been good blackmail material,” Nico mourns.

“Dunno when the hell you got it in your head that blackmailing Vergil was something to do…,” Nero says.

“Didn’ say I was gonna go through with it, dipshit,” Nico says and kicks her foot at him under the coffee table. Nero dodges and yanks his knee right into the edge of the table leg.

“Ow, fuck….”

“Your turn, you kissed Dante, now tell,” Nico demands.  V tilts his mug slowly back and forth, letting the spiced fragrance waft into his nose before he takes a small sip.  It really is delicious; he’s on his third mug now.

“It was Christmas last year,” Nero says, waving a dismissive hand as he glares at the coffee table, red faced.  “He threw mistletoe at my face and pounced.”

“Pfffffff,” Nico deflates into her own lap.

“That sounds rather like he kissed you than you kissed him,” V notes.

“Still counts, don’t it?” Nero shrugs. “Whatever.  That was it.  It’s your turn V.”

“I still feel like I have an unfair advantage in this game,” V says.  “Seeing as how I can claim to have done so little.”

He’s been alternating at leisure between his experiences of his first life and his second, mostly to whatever advantage he prefers at any given moment. V easily admitted to things like being dismembered (alongside Nero) and having tattoos (alongside Nico), both of which were claims clearly designed to catch him.  But then Nero at one point said, “Never have I ever had sex with a man,” and V deliberately didn’t drink even though he very well could have.  He sat and watched Nico jab her cigarette towards Nero’s face and tell him in no small terms that, “Yes, you fucking have, you were just too drunk off your ass to remember, everyone saw it,” and Nero’s insistence that, “A drunk handjob on a dancefloor doesn’t count as sex.”

Regardless, V kept his truth to himself.  And by his unfair advantage, he got away with it.

“Fair don’t matter, the point is to get drunk,” Nico says, waving off his concerns.  

“Get drunk and embarrass one another as much as possible,” Nero agrees.

“Dish on all the good stories,” Nico says.  “Go on, now, you’re up.”

V considers his options for a moment; a smirk preemptively spreads over his lips.

“Never have I ever had sex,” he says.

“You son of a fuck, yes you have!” Nero shouts then takes a shot while Nico knocks back some of her whiskey.  V falls back against the couch cushions and laughs low to himself.

“This body has never,” V says, gesturing to the whole of himself. “I can make that claim honestly.”

“Goddamn loopholes,” Nero cusses but he’s smiling and when V lifts his hand to brush some of his hair away from his neck, Nero’s eyes follow.  And linger.

“Fair does not matter, or so I have been told,” V says.

“Get ‘im, Nero, get ‘im!” Nico sniggers and snorts over her whiskey glass.

V is treated to the narrow-eyed glaredown of one incredibly tipsy demon hunter boy and all he can do is smile back, warmed on the inside from mulled wine and the spotlight of Nero’s focus.   When the pout on Nero’s lips pulls back – a smile full of teeth – there’s a corresponding exhilaration in V's chest.  He grips his mug more tightly and doesn’t dare look away.

“Never have I ever recited poetry,” Nero says smugly.  Nico bursts into another heave of uncontrollable guffaws and V lifts his mug in a toast. 

“Quite clever,” he says before he drinks. The wine is cooling off.  Shifting his balance, attempting to stand, doesn’t work in his favor and V doesn’t even straighten his knees properly before he plops right back down onto the couch and huffs a laugh.

“You’re drunk,” Nero says.

“As are you,” V says and knocks his half-empty mug against the shot glass Nero lifts towards him.

“Cheers t’ bein’ drunk!” Nico crows and they all drink to that.

Half an hour later, Nico is hunched over the arm of the sofa, drooling lightly on her arm while she sleeps and Nero has his head leaned back until his temple bumps against V’s knee.

“Hey,” he says quietly, and clears his throat, “D’ja have fun?”

V is curled up on himself in the corner of the couch, cushion cuddled in his lap a blanket over his bare feet to keep them warm.  From this angle, Nero’s a little upside down.  Everything around V is blurred and unimportant except for the inebriated gleam swimming in Nero’s eyes.  He moves his hand and his knuckles rub up against the silver stubble growing along Nero’s jaw.  Those drowsy eyes close.  Nero sighs and swallows once.

“You were very happy,” V says.  “You smiled a lot.”

“You get all secretive when you’re drunk,” Nero says and a laugh falls out of him.  “Thought it was gonna loosen you up.  Just made it worse.”

“I thought I had revealed plenty,” V says.  His hand turns and he strokes his fingertips up Nero’s cheek. 

“Nah,” Nero says.  His eyes open, thin slits but so bright.  “Still a mystery to me. ‘S alright.  You’re cool. I like you like that.”

V smiles to the very marrow of his brittle bones and touches the dimple in Nero’s cheek, thumbing it, curling over him and his sleepy, drunken smile.  His wings emerge.  Right here, reaching straight up until they can curl around V’s shoulders and clutch him gently.  Nero just laughs.

“’m not doin’ that,” he says.

“No, I am,” V tells him and leans until their foreheads bump.

“Knew it,” Nero mumbles, turning his head just a bit while his claws tap curiously along V’s back and nape.  “Y’keep calling me, keep being lonely.”

“You can tell?” V asks.  He can’t rise now. The position isn’t exactly comfortable but those talons keep him carefully caged.  V slips a little until Nero murmurs tequila-scented secrets against his hair.

“I did it, too,” he says, confessing.  “I’d get fucked up n’ wish you were there n’ there you were.  ‘s the same.”

Like an embrace, the wings hold V tighter.  Nero gives a sigh that lingers long while V stays there, curled up and full of hot-honey feelings of affection.  He’ll live off this feeling for the rest of his life. 

“I cannot hold you like this,” V laments, a whisper against Nero’s flushed ear, though he tries, slipping his arm to wrap over Nero’s chest and keep him near.   

“Mmh….”  There’s barely a slip of consciousness to that reply.

“Nero?” V tries and is met with silence.  Carefully, he pushes and extricates himself from loosening wings.  Nero has surrendered to sleep and left V in the close quiet, near and alone. Drunk and unwilling to argue with himself, V puts his lips tenderly to Nero's forehead, lets his hand linger against the side of Nero’s neck as he turns and settles back into the corner of the couch. 

The room is dark and the windows are fogged and the only sound is Nero and Nico breathing deeply, slowly.  V wraps his arms tight around the pillow in his lap, curling his knees towards his chest until he’s compacted himself cozily into the nook of the sofa.

Every thought is slippery and soft and V nestles himself.  In his mind, in his garden, the night settles in but the stars fall, circling in a spiral orbit, even when he closes his eyes. The whole planet spins beneath him. 

V’s fingers tense – just a moment – against the skin of Nero’s throat and he thinks about staircases….  About being found and being filled with bright blue fire.  He thinks about dreams that might come and the nightmares that could chase after him and how no matter what, he’ll wake up again.  And Nero will be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to my very cherished beta reader and my wife and friends who supported me through this months-long struggle. and thank you very much to every one of you who left kind and thoughtful comments to me in the interim; it really is your doing that i was able to push through and finally get this part out. this fic is absolutely not abandoned and definitely still going and now promises to be longer than ever (if you've noticed the chapter count increasing). 
> 
> as always u can find me on [tumblr](https://rednaelo.tumblr.com) if u like. and if u wanna show support but don't know what to comment, pls feel free to leave me squids くコ:彡 the squid squad gives me life.


	7. Part Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter went through more drafts than any of the other ones I've so far done. had to make it perfect for you guys. 
> 
> *finger guns*
> 
> -Bec

What wakes him is the sound of Nico groaning, stumbling to her feet and over to the kitchen sink, and then barfing.  Which is a shit way to wake up. Nero buries face deeper into the seam of the couch cushions, willing himself to go back to sleep.  

Nico makes a nasty retching sound; everything in her stomach splatters thickly into the sink’s drain.  God…it’s too much….  Nero groans into the couch. His stomach caves beneath the squeeze of his arms.

There’s a soft shifting and something warm falls around Nero’s shoulders, smelling like spices and clean cotton. Behind him, V’s careful footsteps fade toward the kitchen.  He’s murmuring something and then Nico haggardly answers before she throws up again.  The water runs.  Then runs again. More footsteps, the soft click of the guestroom door opening and closing.  

Nero swallows on a sticky tongue and scratched-up throat and ends up coughing against the cushion.  Water….  But, ugh, he doesn’t want to stand.  He’d flop over onto the floor entirely if it wouldn’t be such a cold, hard, bitch to his shitty, hungover body.  

“Wh’time ‘zzit?” Nero groans.

“It’s a little after four A.M.,” V’s soft voice comes from behind him.  “Do you want to go upstairs?”

“No,” Nero groans and hauls himself up from the floor and onto the couch.  When he lands, he falls right into the warm, nest-like hollow that V had slept in, sending up more of that familiar scent.  Has him nuzzling down against the pillow, wishing sleep would just come back to him and smother the twist of queasiness that’s sitting low in his gut.  “You okay?” Nero asks, daring to let one eye squint open in the warm-lit shadows.  

V is gathering empty glasses and bottles from the coffee table.  

“Best of the three of us, I think,” V says quietly before taking the clutter to the kitchen. 

“Would you get me some water?” Nero asks, grimacing as he reaches to unlatch the Devil Breaker.  It falls to the floor with a clattering thud and Nero winces.  “Please,” he adds, feeling lame.  

It’s cold as hell in this house.  Nero pulls the blanket up to his chin.  

“Here.”  V holds a glass out to him.

Ugh, he’s gonna have to sit up….  

“I’m gonna die,” Nero says, rolling onto his back and clenching his eyes tightly closed. 

He’s not.  Tequila makes him dramatic, Nico always said so. 

Nero drinks until his throat isn’t sandpaper anymore and V takes the glass safely away from him before Nero decides he doesn’t care about whether or not he spills.  Maybe he should say something.  Ask V if he really is okay.  But with the cold of the water settling into Nero’s gurgling stomach and the blanket wrapped all softly around him, Nero gives up.  

Sleeping and not having to deal with any of this sounds like the best.  So Nero drops off, barely conscious of steady hands tucking the blanket around his feet. 

The second time he wakes up, there’s sunlight striped in amber across the wood floor and a tower of toast next to Nero’s face. Still steaming off the top.  Next to a little dish of butter and the jar of blueberry preserves (the kind V likes). 

“What,” Nero asks the stack of toast while he tries to sit up and recoil from the sunshine at the same time. 

“Good morning.”

V leans over against the back of the couch, another glass of water in his hand.  Nero stares at it for a few blinks before he scrapes together enough neurons to fire and reach for the glass. 

“Thanks,” he grunts. 

“I made toast because it’s the only thing I trusted myself to not ruin,” V tells him.  

“’s fine,” Nero says and he sits up completely (then promptly hunches over his knees) and takes slow sips from his water.  

It’s hard to care about anything outside of himself because Nero’s got a headache and sitting upright fucking sucks and he’s thirsty and has to piss.  All of these things just need to stop being a thing. He’d go back to sleep but it wouldn’t fix anything.  And all of V’s toast would get cold. 

Cold toast is the worst. 

Nero groans and just hauls up to his feet and goes stamp-stamp-stamping down the hallway to the bathroom to take care of the bladder tantrum issue and wash his face a little and glare at his reflection in the mirror.  He sneers and rolls his eyes and grumbles back to his spot on the couch, next to V, who’s taken a seat and has a mug of hot coffee in one hand and a fucking book in the other, goddamn him. 

“I hate you,” Nero tells V glumly before reattaching his Devil Breaker so he can butter his toast without looking like an idiot.  V just laughs.

“I’m very sorry I had the foresight to hydrate between my drinks and didn’t advise you to the same,” he says.  “It’s almost as if I anticipated this outcome and took steps to avoid it.”

“I hate you,” Nero says again. The butter is soft enough that even though the toast isn’t hot-out-of-the-toaster anymore, it still spreads smoothly.  Little miracle, that….

“I hope you’ll change your mind once you’re feeling recovered,” V say diplomatically.  His smile is so quiet and cunning as he turns the pages of his book.  Like hell is he even reading it.  Sitting there all composed and inoffensive and not-hungover with his book and his coffee and his toast-stack and his hair pulled back…. 

Nero blinks and leans to look closer.  V found a hair-tie or something and has just…tugged the longest strands back into a little tail at the back of his head while a few locks still hang around his face.  It’s…different.  Nero swallows his mouthful and doesn’t bother stopping himself: he reaches out his finger and flicks the little tuft.

“Thanks for the food,” Nero says, going back for another bite while V stares at him sidelong.  “Don’t hate you, just pissed that you’re all pretty and perfect and I feel like hot shit.” 

V scoffs and turns away so the pink of his cheek might’ve been Nero’s imagination.  But with his hair pulled back, Nero spies the flush along V’s bared and elegant neck: rosy soft between stark, black lines.  V shifts, restless, to tuck his feet under himself.  He always sits like this for whatever reason.  Maybe his feet are just cold all the time.  Nero wonders. He should wear socks…. All his tattoos are on the top half of his body, right?  Nero’s not actually sure.  Maybe they go down his legs, too.  Not to his feet, though….

Then V picks up his mug and Nero expectantly puts his hand out, grasping and going, “Mm-mm-mh!” with his mouthful of toast.  V clicks his tongue but passes the mug anyway. 

“I would be happy to pour you some of your own,” he tells Nero. 

“Mmh,” Nero says again while he sips V’s coffee.  He always makes it like…perfect somehow.  And all he does is put milk and sugar in it but whatever the hell magic he does, his coffee is so good.  Maybe it’s the French press.  “Nah, stealing it from you is better,” Nero tells V. 

“Clearly,” V says while he watches Nero drain half his cup.  Then he rolls his eyes (but the smile is there, Nero sees it before V covers it with his long, pale-and-inked fingers).

It’s not even that Nero’s got the heavy reverberation of tequila bruises on the inside of his skull and V doesn’t.  Like, sure, that sucks, but V is infuriatingly composed.  There’s no trace of a pillow-crease on his cheek.  There’s no piecey, greasy clumping of his hair at the roots from him sweating merlot all night. He’s got a soft little ponytail at the back of his head and his nails are painted perfect black without a chip and he’s hiding his smile but Nero sees it softening the shadows under his eyes.  

He’s like something out of Nero’s dreams.  Not the fucking nightmares that grew in the wrinkles of his brain all summer. The recent ones.  The dreams where V is slow moving smiles – hued in smoke shades of purple-gray – and the thick and soft feeling of fog filling Nero’s lungs. Dreams where V is totally unreal, there in Nero’s hands and also nothing but a laugh and a lingering flutter of curiosity beneath Nero’s stomach.  

And it’s like that in dreams but it’s like that in this very moment, with the two of them sitting side by side while Nero follows the outline of V’s face, tracing him in profile.  His sharp, jutting nose and his full, wide mouth where his white-and-black fingers rub absently at his lips….  

“I don’t imagine we’re going hunting today,” V says, effectively pulling Nero off his train of thought and wherever the hell it was going.  

“Yeah, no,” Nero says and finally surrenders V’s coffee to its rightful owner.  “You make me go out in daylight I might just fucking explode.”

“And I doubt Nico would be up to the task of driving,” V agrees. 

“She in there?” Nero asks, jerking his chin towards the guest room door.  The room that Nico used to claim whenever she spent the night at Nero’s place but then gave up to V.  Only for V to give it up for the bedroom next to Nero’s.

“Still sleeping,” V says with a nod.  

“She’ll be there all day,” Nero says, because Nico handles whiskey terribly.  She’s better with beer.  “When she’s not running to the toilet.”

V grimaces.  

“Perhaps I should check on her,” he says, already scooting to the edge of the couch to stand.  

“Just talk through the door,” Nero advises.  “She’ll throw something at you if you just open it.”

“Speaking from personal experience?”

“I’ve taken a wrench to the face,” Nero says.

V nods slowly, facing the door like it will take all his might to measure up to it.  Nero snorts and turns back to his steadily diminishing stack of toast.

The morning drags by in scrapes and lapses and Nero finds the wherewithal to make himself some eggs since he can’t survive on toast alone.  V hovers inoffensively nearby and watches him – learning, probably – so Nero lets him look but doesn’t narrate the experience.  They’ll have other days.  Other times when Nero can teach him the techniques without having to hold back a headache.  He makes eggs for V, too, as thanks.  

They eat and they sit on the couch together in the quiet and V sips his coffee and Nero steals V’s mug every now and then since his coffee is perfect.  The caffeine does fuck all for Nero’s energy levels and he curls back up on his side with a full, warm stomach and closes his eyes.  He naps.  He wakes up two hours later.  V doesn’t seem to have moved but there’s a blanket tucked around Nero again. His feet are pressed right up against V’s hip while he reads (a book on modern witchcraft that he skims with that smug smile on his lips, like he knows better but he’s not gonna say anything about it).

Nero lays there, affecting sleep, while he stares at V through his eyelashes and thinks about all the stupid times (like, barely a week ago) that he would get so utterly fucked-up-drunk just so he had an excuse to not move.  So he could bury himself in his bed and live in the whole-body ache: his stomach as sick as his heart, his limbs as numb as his thoughts.  

Hangovers were like…justification.  Not that Nero even really thought about it until now.  He just drank to stop thinking.  And spent the recovery continuing to not think.  

It’s different this time.  He wants to take V out shooting again.  Watch him light up and land shots.  Wants to fight alongside him, go back into the nests just to see what they can do together.  For the first time in a long damn time, Nero wishes he hadn’t gotten drunk.  They could be out there right now…. 

Nero nudges at V with his toes, startling him from his book.  He turns his head and his eyes soften with a smile.  

“Tomorrow,” Nero mumbles. 

“Yes?” V asks. 

“We’re going back out tomorrow,” Nero tells him. “You too.”

“I was hoping so,” V says.

“Gotta shoot more,” Nero tells him.  “’m gonna make you a bullet fiend.”

V smiles.  Wide, pretty mouth…full lips…. Perfect smile.

“Sounds exciting,” V says.  

* * *

It’s his third day dry.  Not that Nero planned it or anything.  The day after the hangover, he was staring at the counter overcrowded with liquor bottles and considered just swiping the lot onto the floor.  Which was the first time that particular impulse struck him so he took it as a sign. 

He’s left with the Well Now What feelings of his brainspace and its tendency to pull his thoughts in fun directions.  The most familiar is _when the hell am I getting out of this city_ which is usually closely accompanied by _are Dante and Vergil ever getting back_ and not too far behind that is _I might just be here forever_ and usually by that point, Nero opens a bottle of Patrón.

This time, he’s got new thoughts.  Thoughts that feature V’s tattoos and the lightning strike brightness of them when he’s aiming down the sights and the way his hand holds books open and the scratch in his voice he gets when he’s talking but he’s super tired and barely keeping himself awake.  Those thoughts don’t lead Nero to a bottle of anything but sometimes they lead him out the door because he gets restless and his feet need to move, need to take him somewhere until the impatience fades out. 

And that’s where he is, walking in the late noon sun and brisk-blueness of the empty street.  Back behind him, Nico has spilled her workshop all over the road and cranked the jukebox volume all the way up so she can hear it over the screech of her power tools while she works.  The noise echoes down the whole street and she’s barely a pinprick now, if Nero checks over his shoulder. 

Demons haven’t really been coming to this side of town for months now.  Better for everyone’s peace of mind.  It’s been like a week or something since Nero’s even seen the folks of the outskirts.  Used to hang out with them near about every day, but since V got here…. 

Maybe it’s about time that he goes and checks in, just to make sure all the friendly mortals are staying safe, that nothing’s creeped up behind while they weren’t looking.  He should bring V with him.  Show him the strange sights of a shamble-town of runaways and refugees looking to scratch out their ideal anarchy.  V’d probably get a kick out of it.  Or at least a raised eyebrow and a look to his eyes that would probably speak volumes if Nero knew that language. 

Nero could haul V back to Flicker and see what he thinks now that he’s not a walking fever dream.  Or would he even like that?  Maybe the noise and the people would just bother him.  Yikes, yeah, probably better to ask first.  But now Nero’s wondering if V would dance if he had the floor and the crowd to lose himself in.  Nero doesn’t dance with anything like talent but he likes to think he’s not too bad.  V could probably…. 

He’s just all lithe and deliberate when he moves. There’s gracefulness there.  Even when V was leaning on that cane all the time, he could still cut an impressive path.  And that cane has been sitting against V’s nightstand like a decoration for days now; V could run if he wanted, he could dance. 

Nero presses his lips together tightly, chewing on the tender insides without even realizing it.  V could be cast in the harsh, pink lighting of the dance floor at Flicker, his hair pulled back in that little tail so Nero could see the sweat on his neck while he danced.  He’d tilt his head back and smile and maybe Nero would have a good excuse to hold those bony hips and pull….

Nero bangs his knee on a motorcycle.

“God, fuck!”

Nero drops to the asphalt and hisses and groans with his forehead against the tailpipe.

Alright, so maybe thinking about V so much won’t drive him to drink but it’s probably split his kneecap.  Fuck, can Nico make Devil Breaker Knees?  Is that a thing?  

Demon healing kicks in quick but Nero definitely smashed a nerve with that smooth move. 

He tips back until he falls on his ass and just sighs, glaring at the scuffed and faded leather and chrome.  Not that it was the bike’s fault.  Thing’s been left there, abandoned, just like Nero left his brain in some stupid fantasy of dancing with V at a nightclub.  

Bike could use some work….  Elements have got to it since it’s just been sitting out here on the curb.  The keys are still in the ignition.

Curious, Nero reaches and turns them and the engine makes a weak chugging noise, starts up, and splutters threateningly.  He turns it off again and makes up his mind to take it back and see what he can do with it.  Couldn’t hurt, Nero reasons as he takes hold of the handlebars and flicks the kickstand.  At the very least, he’ll give himself something to focus on. Something more productive than staring out into space and imagining the curve of V’s back.  Which he’s never even seen. 

But he’d like to. 

“Wouldn’t we all,” Nero grumbles and takes his time encouraging the bike back to the cheerful chaos of Nico’s streetside workshop. 

Looks like she’s hauled out the amp and plugged it in so the swamp rock is just booming, rattling the windows, and Nero smiles when he gets close enough to recognize the song.  Behind her welding helmet, Nico’s drawl is in full tilt as she sings along, loudly.  She hasn’t played this album since before they even came to Red Grave.  Last time he heard it, Nero was with her in the garage, working on their van remodel.  Two summers ago.  

“Hey!” Nero shouts over all the noise, then whistles sharp enough to cut, just in case.  Nico straightens up and flips up her mask, hollering over at him.  

“Whacha got there, kitty cat?”

“Found a bike,” Nero calls, wheeling it in closer to her workbench.  “Gonna see if I can fix it up.”

“Toolbox over there,” Nico yells, pointing a half-finished gun towards it.  “Holler if you need help.”

And that’s all they need.  

Nero takes off his jacket and tosses it over on the front stairs, rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.

Condition of the bike’s pretty par for the course and Nero’s already putting together a whole list of things he’s gonna have to go out and scavenge.  New gaskets and seals.  He’s gotta clean off all the rust, flush out the fuel lines and siphon in a new tank of gas.  Needs new tires like _fuck_ ; these ones are just pathetic. Probably gonna take a few days before this thing is in any condition to ride but if he starts now, he’ll make a dent.  Nero grins and licks his lips and goes straight for the carburetors.

There’s steel guitar twanging over the amp and Nero’s hands blacken with grease while he oils up the chain drive and Nico’s just over there belting out the lyrics to her favorite song on the album.  By the time the track turns over and she starts in on the next verse, Nero’s singing along with her (though not as loud).  An hour goes by like that.  Late burning sun and rowdy bluegrass rock and Nero and Nico with their hands dirty, smiling, singing like this is the goddamn life. 

It kinda is, Nero thinks, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand before he gets back up to his elbows in machinery.  This is the best he’s had in a long damn time.  Never knew he missed being himself but it’s like he’s slid back into his body again, clicking right back into the hookups.  

He’s mouthing off harmonizing nonsense noises during the guitar solo when a shadow slides softly over his shoulders.  Nero whips around and there’s V, smiling, hair pulled back, a bowl in each hand full of reheated leftovers from yesterday. 

“Shit,” Nero says because there’s no ignoring how hungry he is now.  Somehow the hours just faded away.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” V says, always the diplomat.  This morning, he put a mug of coffee next to Nero’s hand, made in that way that only V can make it.  Then he smiled all sweetly, keeping his own mug close to his chest and said, “You’re welcome,” and Nero took the hint.  No more coffee thievery (though Nero was still tempted, just to pull on V’s pigtails a bit, just to make him narrow his eyes and look Nero’s way).

“Nah, it’s fine,” Nero says, stretching up to his feet and wiping his dirty hands off on his pants, leaving oily stains behind.  “That for me?” He reaches eagerly for a bowl and V passes it over.

“I considered inviting you inside to assist me with making something different,” he says while Nero digs in.  “But you seemed preoccupied.”

They made beef stew together last night, an hour next to the stove and then another hour just sitting side by side, waiting for the slow-cooking to work its magic.  V’s as attentive with a kitchen knife in his hands as he is with a .22.  And Nero never thought he’d be the one teaching V anything.  But it’s pretty rad. 

“Yeah, don’t worry, this is fine,” Nero says around his cheek full of potato.  “Your timing’s great, I wasn’t even thinking about food.” Then he swallows and yells over his shoulder.  “Hey, Nico!”

“What?!”

“You hungry?”

“What?”  And then she turns off her belt sander and lowers the volume on the amp.  

“V brought dinner,” Nero says and points at the other bowl V’s holding. 

“Oh, fuck,” Nico says and goes scrambling to the van, throwing the door open and picking her phone up off the driver’s seat.  “Fuck, I gotta go.”  Nero frowns. 

“Hot date?” he asks and he and V watch her toss what she can back into the van and leave the rest of it in an unfortunate mess all over the street.

“Yeah, Marlene!” Nico yells out the window before she cranks the ignition.  “Bye!”  She swerves around them and rides the sidewalk a little before the tires squeal and she just tears down the road, leaving them in her dust.  

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have this myself,” V says and makes himself comfortable on the bottom step with Nico’s abandoned food. 

“Silver linings, man,” Nero agrees. He pulls the bottom of his shirt up to wipe the sweat off of his face.

“I’m not familiar with that motorcycle you’re working on,” V says while Nero stuffs his face.  “Have you always had it?”

“Nah,” Nero says between bites.  “Picked up on my way back.”

“Finder’s keepers” V says with a slight smile.

“It’s somethin’ to do,” Nero says with a shrug.  “I used to work on bikes and cars back in our shop in Fortuna.  ‘S been a while but the work feels good.”

“Mmmh.”  V lifts his chin and gives Nero a smile that doesn’t seem too foreign a language.  The warmth is there, deep in his eyes, softness at the tilt of his lips.  It’s a look that makes something swoop deep in Nero’s stomach.  “I could hear you singing, before,” V says and Nero splutters. “You must be quite happy.”

“It’s whatever,” Nero says, ears hot against his head while the autumn wind pinches his cheeks pink and V chuckles gently around another spoonful.  Nero shoves food into his mouth with single-minded vehemence until there’s only broth to scrape off the bottom.  Yeah, maybe he is happy.  Enough to forget himself and sing while he works.  And so what if V heard him?  He’s not like…making fun of Nero or anything.  

They both could use a little happiness, after all the shit they’ve been through.

“I’ve never quite seen the appeal of motorcycles,” V says after another bite.  “But I imagine you know what you’re doing.  You’ve had your fair share of experiences.”

“Blame Nico for that one,” Nero says.  “She taught me most of the shit about cars and bikes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I didn’t even ride one until we finished fixing up this Ducati that she had buried in junk shed.”  Nero misses that thing.  It’s back in Fortuna, probably in a shit state by now.  Nero will have to give it some TLC when he makes it back. 

But that’ll be…whenever that will be.  Days or weeks or months or years from now.  

“Hey,” Nero says, veering far from the alcoholic territory of never getting out of Red Grave, ever, “when I’m done fixing the bike, let’s go somewhere.”

V raises his eyebrows right as Nero catches up with what he just said and his heart starts banging harder, realizing. 

“Somewhere in Red Grave?” V clarifies. 

“Yeah,” Nero says.  There’s a balance between coolly casual and enthusiastic excitement and he’s got no fucking clue if he’s there (his voice might be wobbling) but, hey.  Nero’s not bad with improvising.  “Like, uhhh, fuck, I don’t know….  Oh!  Yeah, there’s that friggin’ museum-garden-whatever thing on the other side of town.  Haven’t been in but you dig stuff like that, right?”

V’s not saying anything. 

“Agh, wait, no, I’m pretty sure it’s got a big fuck-off hole right through the middle of it, fuckin’ Qliphoth, haha.”

God, what is his fucking problem?  Nero stares into V’s eyes since if he looks away now, that’ll really be showing his belly and he’d rather own up to his idiocy.  Even if it feels like his ears are about to melt right off. 

Own it, asshole. Nero grits his teeth while he smiles. 

“Sometimes I find myself wanting to retrace my footsteps in this city,” V says, turning to face the end of the street.  Nero looks, too, but there’s nothing but the empty asphalt and the dusty cars and leaf-clutter.  “I think it would end up being,” he pauses to put his empty bowl on the step beside him, “much more agreeable if I had your company.”

Nero frowns.  His hands are sticky with engine grease, sweat in the seams of his palm. 

“So like,” he tries, “you wanna go to that busted-up cathedral and the fuckin’…tube station and wherever else?”  Nero hasn’t ventured much into the surreal hellscape that is the part of the town that surrounded the base of the Qliphoth.  Street blocks laid out like M.C. Escher drawings and architecture that twists and towers over him, grown out of a nightmare.  And V really wants to just stroll right back into that mess. 

“I do,” V nods.  “I’d like to revisit them with you.”  And he tilts his chin towards Nero’s work in progress.  “Will you take me?”

Yeah, Nero would rather kick this bike over and give it up for loss.

“The hell you wanna go back there for?” Nero clicks his tongue and returns to the bike.  To busy his hands and look at anything other than the disappointment on V’s face.  It’s there.  As present as the pit in Nero’s stomach.  “There’s nothing.  Just a mess that won’t ever get cleaned up. Nothing but fuckin’ nothing.” 

Red Grave has life at the outskirts and a great gaping wound in the middle that goes straight to hell.  Nero’s already taken main street all the way to the very center.  Twice.  Thrown out in failure the first time and the second gave him worse whiplash than Nico plunging pell-mell into a brick wall. 

Found his family. Fought his family.  His father.  Somehow won but lost fucking _everything_.  

“I understand how you feel,” V says.  Quietly, so Nero has to turn his head, glance over his shoulder to hear him. “Because my feelings are the same.  And I wish to change that.”  

Nero returns blankly to his work while behind him, V stands and approaches with measured footsteps.

“I would think of this city often in my waking dreams, after I had reunited with Urizen,” V continues.  He lowers himself until he’s sitting at Nero’s side, legs folded up under himself, like he sits on the couch.  “Red Grave was one of the few places that I was allowed: my own memories of the city and my time spent here.  But those were not pleasant memories.”

“No shit,” Nero sighs.  He runs his hand over his forehead and through his hair.  “Might’ve had some fun at first but it all just went to hell, didn’t it?”

“To put it lightly,” V says.  His eyebrows flick up and he turns away in annoyance, leaving Nero to snigger.  “If it was possible, I’d like to go to those places of anger and unrest and reshape the memories.  Make them palatable, at least.  Make new memories in their place, happier ones.”

Nero exhales.  Leans his elbow on his knee and stares sidelong at V who has found some aspect of the bike to focus on while his long, inked-and-painted fingers fold over one another.  

“I don’t believe I could do that on my own,” V tells him.  “I’d find myself stuck on a feedback loop of my own despair.  If you’re there, though, things would be different.  I don’t find myself dwelling on my darkness when we speak.”

Nero doesn’t really know what his own face looks like, what V sees when he turns to meet his eyes.  Maybe his smile is only as small and flickering as the one V gives him, maybe his gaze just as unsure and similarly hopeful.  

“You keep talking about me like that, I’ll start getting an ego,” Nero tells him and V laughs.  A laugh that’s full-smiling and honest and relieved and makes Nero’s stomach fizz like shaken champagne.

“Oh, heavens, no. You?  An ego?” he says. His eyes are shining in the purple dusk. 

“I know, I know, it sounds impossible,” Nero says, grin in full force. “But just trust me.  Should quit while you’re ahead.  You ever seen what I can do with an ego?  I’ve made demons cry.”

V snorts.  Like, honest-to-god snorts into his hand, curling towards his lap, shoulders shaking and Nero starts a sputtering laugh after trying to keep a straight face for maybe two seconds. 

This must be it, what V was just talking about.  Nero’s inability to let things get serious for too long.  Maybe V’s onto something with the whole misery-in-company thing, taking trips to old nightmares and stopping to laugh along the way together.  He trusts Nero for that.  

That’s….  That’s pretty awesome.  

Nero could maybe trust V for that too.  To snort at his stupid jokes and roll those eden-dark eyes and let the smirk touch the corner of his mouth and just be there to take him seriously for the minute or two that he needs it.  

“Nero,” V says once the giggle-fit fades a little.  Nero sits up to pay attention and V reaches a hand out for him.  “You’ve got oil on your forehead.”  His thumb presses to Nero’s hairline and wipes away whatever’s there.  

“Yeah, it’s part of the whole mechanic look, you see,” Nero says.  “Gotta look the part so you know I’m serious about it.  Look, see….”  Nero snags V’s wrist and leans in and wipes his dirty fingers across the cut of V’s cheekbone, leaving a black smear behind while V cracks up laughing again, pretending to struggle.  “Now you look like a grease monkey too.  All you need is ratty-lookin’ coveralls and no one would know.” 

There’s engine grease swiped across V’s cheek and his eyes are shining with laughter. His smile is soft and wide, curved over his lips.  And then the garden gates of his eyes gradually creak closed.  The light of that laugh fades; V’s smile turns bittersweet. 

He wore this face that night Nero gave his book back, telling Nero about all the things he wished he could dream of, but was never allowed. 

“What’s wrong?” Nero asks as V lets his hand go slack in Nero’s grip.

In a diffused bloom of blue – like a match struck in the dark – V’s face is cast in light.  It contours the hollows of his cheeks and makes the smudge stand out all the more.  Nero gives the briefest glance to the ephemeral claws that curve around his shoulders.  Then finds V’s eyes again, tightens his hold on his wrist. 

“Hey, I’m right here,” Nero says. 

He may have been sloshed out of his skull that night but Nero remembers about his wings.  About what it means with their contract, with V. 

“I know,” V says softly and Nero leans until their foreheads bump and his Devil Breaker slips to clutch V’s hand. 

V’s eyes close gently, keeping Nero out, leaving him there with V’s smile that’s grown small and sad and still so beautiful.  The talons at his shoulders squeeze once.  Like a hint.  Like it’s urging him. 

Nero gets on his knees, leans in, pulls slow.  Doesn’t let his thoughts speak to him.  V’s eyes open and Nero steals his way in through the slip of surprise there. 

 _I got you_ , Nero doesn’t say. But it’s true.  

He kisses V’s gasping mouth. He seals his lips around the startled sound V makes until it’s a hum in both their throats.  Nero paints V’s wrists and hands with engine grease and pulls him off balance until their noses rub.  

“Nero,” V pleads and each vowel is soft and wet against Nero’s mouth.

“V,” Nero whispers back to him, just to feel his lips against V’s again, the warm, brushing softness. 

And maybe V wants to say more, false starts and unformed syllables shaping his lips, moving them against Nero’s, but the hot haze of hunger turns Nero’s whole existence blurry.  He traces the tip of his tongue against the soft inside of V’s bottom lip and V startles.  A fractured gasp, a soft sound like pain, like need. 

Nero knows the feeling.  He tugs until he can fit V’s slender, long-fingered hand against his chest, over his heart, where his blood is a raging riot, pounding and pounding and pounding. 

“Oh,” V says.  Oh….

“You feel?” Nero asks him, hoping to god he gets it, and curls his hand against the side of V’s neck, thumbs at his pulse, feels the answer.  “It’s good,” Nero says and kisses V again.  Again.  Again, again. 

He doesn’t retreat – can’t bear to leave – but there’s enough space for him to see the full flush of V’s face, his neck (his pulse at his throat, loud enough to jump visibly beneath Nero’s thumb), and his eyes that are wide and dark.  Staring straight into him.  V is shaking.   

Nero swallows. 

“Are you okay?”  Ready to let go and stop and….  God, if he fucked it up, if he figured this all wrong….  V’s teeth practically chatter as he takes long, labored breaths. 

“I’m,” V says and inhales…exhales….  Nero rubs his fingers in slow circles against the back of V’s hand.  “You caught me off guard,” V finally says.  He reaches to run his fingers through Nero’s hair.  Strokes and strokes, almost like it’s to soothe himself rather than Nero.  Meanwhile, Nero stares at V’s shivering chin and his parted pink lips, feeling his own heartbeat kicking his ribs.  

“Yeah, but are you okay?” Nero repeats because he can’t tell and he hates that he can’t tell.  

V swallows hard and Nero follows the bob of his throat. And then his wings unfold and wrap tight around V’s back as he moves himself into Nero’s lap.  

“I don’t know,” V says.  He tips Nero’s head and Nero’s heart leaps to his mouth, so he knows V can taste it when he kisses him.  Nero holds V safe to himself and his wings hold him even tighter and V just shivers like he’ll fall apart if Nero lets him go.  V kisses him, nuzzling in with parted lips and soft sounds drawn out of him as Nero tests his teeth against V’s mouth. 

Nero’s dizzy.  Hot and dizzy and perfectly drunk on the warmth of V’s tongue touching his.  V’s fingers rub against his chest and Nero’s talons have laced together behind V’s back, keeping their stomachs warm, pressed together.  His heartbeat throbs through his temples, swollen and heavy.   It’s good….

“I wanted this,” Nero tells V, to the corner of his wide mouth and the perfect, carved plane of his cheek.

“This?” V gasps, shuddering – still – in Nero’s lap.  Hot from his neck, down along his chest, to the place where his legs are spread over Nero’s hips.  Nero tries a smile and watches V follow his tongue when he wets his lips.  

“Since the bookstore,” Nero tells him and V says, “Oh, god…,” and his whole body sways into Nero’s, trembling.  “Since before that,” Nero corrects, squeezing V tight, but he couldn’t say when.  Feels like his whole life, if he’s honest.  

Nero puts his hand between V’s shoulder blades and rubs; V’s arm slides around Nero’s neck and he stills himself, breathing brokenly through his mouth.  

“Seriously, are you okay?” Nero asks again because V’s heaving and shaking like a wave crashed over him and dragged him under.  But he’s still here.  Holding tight, hanging on. 

“I don’t care,” V says, exhausted and agitated all at once. V’s arm goes taught against his shoulders, drawing him in, and Nero makes this hungry noise before meeting him in the middle.

Nero’s ribs are caging back sunshine from early spring, warmed through to his bones as V strokes his hand in a slow arc against his chest, his palm sliding up the back of Nero’s neck to scratch at his scalp.  He’s starting to sweat in every place their bodies are pressed together; his cock is hard against his thigh and Nero’s failing to find any reason he shouldn’t tip V onto the road, right here, and put his mouth on every inch of him. 

“How far can I go?” Nero asks him even though V still can’t take an even breath.  

“W-wait,” V says and Nero waits.  Holds him with all four arms and puts his head against the curve of V’s neck, keeps them both steady.  Though after a few slow breaths, Nero starts to rock them.  Just a little. Coaxed by V’s fingers, still stroking through his hair, Nero’s eyelids drift shut and he follows the rhythm.  Back and forth….  

“I want to hold you all night,” Nero tells him, surrendered to his instincts and impulses and hoping that maybe it’ll sound good to V.  “You’re so warm right now, it’s driving me crazy, it’s so good.”  

V encircles both of his arms around Nero’s head, folding him in.  He says nothing but his heartbeat is hard and rapid against Nero’s skin, his every breath wavers.  He's shivering as if Nero wrapped all around him, putting off eager heat, isn’t enough to keep him warm. The doubts swell in the silence. Nero presses his lips together and turns until his forehead rubs against V’s collarbone. 

Shit, he might’ve really fucked up.  V couldn’t even give him a straight answer any of the times Nero asked if he was alright.  Shouldn’t that be answer enough?  

Nero’s wings loosen and flicker out.  He lets his arms go slack and takes a deep breath, promises himself that he’ll find a way to fix this.  

V tenses with a cut-off noise of alarm.  His arms cage Nero in place, hold him at the back of his head and dig into his jacket. If anything, his breathing goes even more unsteady.

“Okay,” Nero says gently and wraps V up again. A relieved chuckle eases Nero's shoulders while V readjusts, makes himself comfortable on Nero’s lap.

Nero picks up his head, nudging away V’s hold, smiles at the black smear on his cheek (still there) and the thrilled, terrified shine in V’s eyes and draws him down to kiss him again.  

He’ll give him everything.  Every frantic heartbeat and greedy, gripping hold and steady embrace until V’s satisfied with him.  And then some, afterwards.  

Then a thought occurs to Nero.  He asks it, dragging his lips from V’s mouth, across his cheek, his jaw, to the soft part of his ear. 

“Did I take your first kiss?”

V shivers again, full-bodied.  His hips jolt against Nero’s stomach and Nero’s mouth waters when he feels V hard against him.  

“Yes,” V says, confessing, breathless.  Nero makes a deep and satisfied hum and runs his hands up and down along V’s back.  “And me?”  V asks, smile unsteady on his lips but blazing bright in his eyes. “Do I get any of your firsts?”

Nero laughs and turns his mouth against V’s neck, kissing him there and loving the surprised and indulged sound it draws from V’s lips.  

“If that’s what you want,” Nero says, face red, realizing there’s not much V could suggest that Nero would refuse.  “I’m down.”  V makes that sound again, louder this time.   His nails drag across the fabric of Nero’s jacket with a noise like a soft growl.

“That is what I want,” V tells him, pressing the promise in a murmur right against Nero’s ear.  Nero’s breathing hitches in his chest and he swallows on a suddenly dry throat.  V’s teeth scrape the shell of his ear and he steels his arms against V’s back.  

“Fuck,” Nero gasps.  He’s gotta get something soft under them both because all the blood rushed south just then; he doesn’t trust himself to stay upright. “Y’wanna…let’s go inside?”

“And then what?” V tests, breath warm against Nero’s already burning ear.  

“And then…,” Nero swallows again and brings his hand down until it’s braced against the back of V’s hips.  “And then…we can make out more?”  

“Yes,” V agrees, and kisses Nero’s forehead.  

“And I can touch you more,” Nero says.

“Yes,” V agrees, and kisses Nero’s cheeks, one after the other. 

“Can I get you off?” Nero asks, the fantasy running ahead of him and he’s just chasing it now, not even thinking. God, he’s pretty sure there’s steam coming off the back of his neck.  

V laughs.  That wonderful, perfect, pink-colored, wet-mouthed, shiny-toothed laugh and Nero smiles the whole time, even after V dips in and kisses his lips.  Nero twirls his fingers into V’s little ponytail.   

“I’m not sure,” V says against Nero’s chin and bites him gently.  “You’ve never tried.” 

“Fuck,” Nero laughs, breathless, blushing all the way to his boots.  “Yeah.  Yeah, but I really want to.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please know that i'm entirely sincere when i say i hope this made you happy. <3 i worked real hard and you waited real long and all I wanted was to bring us both joy. 
> 
> thank u so very much to my beta reader <3 thank you to all of you for supporting me. feel free to drop by on [tumblies](https://rednaelo.tumblr.com) or comment with a squid くコ:彡 if u wanna show some love but can't find the words. 
> 
> ilu bbs


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